The Three Lions, Please Show Your Mettle: Cricket's Greatest Status as the Top Contest Depends on It

The legendary Australian batsman was the subject of the initial serious read I recall going through as a youngster. In the mind of a primary school student, the injustice of an England's skipper ordering his teammates to target a talented Aussie was unfathomable. Thus, like many, I came to hate England.

Anticipation for the Ashes? That's a given. Cricket’s calendar makes this a special occasion to observe two of the world’s best teams test and taunt and tease each other over what we anticipate will be 25 days of interrogation with the traditional red ball.

As the celebrated all-rounder reminded us last week at the launch of the ticket draw for the 150th anniversary Test, the Ashes has a special charm. “Historically, fans globally tunes into the Ashes,” he said. “It's about heritage, it’s the competition, it's always full throttle.”

Across the UK, those two recent drawn series – featuring Steve Smith’s mountain of runs and Stokes' heroic innings in 2019, and the Lord’s Long Room disgrace of 2023 – have met the expectations of what an Ashes battle should be. However, they have not had the same cultural impact on the other side of the world when many locals nods off before the end of the lunch interval.

On Australian soil, the Ashes has been more subdued than just uneventful for over ten years. Fans down under anticipate their team to win and win handily, as it has been since the nineties. Scott Boland’s 6-7 at the MCG wasn’t wrought in a furnace of competition, it was English tragicomedy confirming a worldview. A true rivalry should not be so one-sided.

The Sport's Commentators Must Now Lean In at the Ashes’ Waning Embers and Whistle Oxygen

The English team were greeted upon arrival by a tired headline in the local tabloid, “Baz Bawl”, accompanied by a description of the highly regarded Ben Stokes as “cocky”. The paper then had a dig at “Mediocre” Root, aka “Dud Root Down Under”. It was enough to elicit a typical media response, enabling the press to extract every last drop in the days before the first ball is bowled.

In contrast, last year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy between Australia and India sparked something on its own. The spiritual peak was the Melbourne match, a moment that will linger forever. The numbers, too, impressed. Over 800,000 were present across the series, the fourth highest for any contest in Australia and the highest for any non-Ashes matchup. Audiences were entranced, not unlike the TV bump for India's UK visit this year, and multiple periods drew more than two million TV fans.

In recent weeks, the touching send-offs of two Indian legends at the Sydney Cricket Ground made ODI matches truly significant. Contrast the headline following the last time England visited for a white ball tour: “Record-low MCG crowd for Australia-England ODI raises fears for ODI cricket's survival”.

India’s Rising Influence

Although rain ruined the short-format games with India, the action that occurred suggests Australia are lagging behind the T20 international standards. For the women's game, at the global tournament last month, the host nation defeated the defending champions. The multi-format series kicking off in February-March is shaping up as a unofficial world title decider.

It’s easy to dismiss the colorful fan groups that flock to India’s matches – and not just Tests – as a simple reflection of the vast diaspora of the planet's largest country. But, to financial analysts and television executives, they are an elixir.

The world’s largest democracy now means more to Australia than its historical roots, given the countries share an sea, shared colonial history, and increasingly their peoples. India will likely surpass the UK, per official statistics, as the source of the biggest contingent of foreign-born Australian residents as early as this year. The struggling defence pact is prompting a realignment of security priorities acknowledging the rising power of Asian powers, a change that occurred years back in the cricketing world.

The former Australian skipper, who also led the Indian team, said last week that England was “our biggest traditional rival”, but added “to be fair, if not for India, the sport would suffer”.

The Ultimate Test

Before Australia claimed the trophy last summer, India had held it for a decade. On the subcontinent, Australia haven't triumphed in over two decades. Should the home side win back the urn easily this summer, losing the multi-match series in India in the coming years would leave the Cummins era incomplete.

That elusive victory on the subcontinent remains the final proving ground for today's players, and a blip against England this summer – attributed to unfortunate bowler injury, just like past incidents – would only fuel the story.

England have not secured a victory in Australia for almost 15 years, and despite the history, it cannot sustain a lopsided rivalry forever. So, with a vibrant Indian team having only just flown out, the English squad have much to play for. Win the series and stay relevant. Or surrender the trophy and with it something that can’t be won back: the right to Australia’s greatest rivalry. Please England, raise your game.