“While ever there’s a captain like Pat Cummins there’s hope for the future,” but is the Ashes series really that important anymore, asks “The Gadfly” columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.

WHY is it, I wonder, that we care so much about the fate of our national men’s cricket team in the contest for that small terracotta urn said to hold the ashes of a burnt bail from an obscure country match against a visiting British team in 1882? 

And is it really that important anymore? 

I suspect your answers to both will depend on how much you played or enjoyed watching the game in earlier days, so I should confess immediately that from about age seven I practised hitting forward defensive shots against a cricket ball inside one of mum’s old nylon stockings tied to the washing line in the backyard. 

And when I saw it had frayed sufficiently, I’d belt it through the toe-hole and watch it soar over the Burton’s fence next door. Mr Burton was a kindly man who lost all his hair in the war; and he’d toss it back to me with a grin: “Six and out, Robbie”.

Saturday mornings were all cricket. We Methodists didn’t have a team so I became a Presbyterian, a wicket-keeper and an opening bat. 

My father and I would sit around the big wireless far into the night listening to Johnny Moyes call the matches from Lords and other famous English grounds. And we once went to the ‘Gabba and saw Lindwall and Miller demolish a West Indian innings; then Miller hit Valentine out of the ground, right over my head; the umpires had to find another one just like it.

Naturally, I wanted to play for Australia, but newspapering and cricket practice didn’t mix and the furthest I progressed was a Sunday match in scratch teams of state and grade players. I opened the batting with Sam Trimble, the Queensland captain. We were chasing about 120 and he scored 97 while I somehow accumulated 27 at the other end. 

By then I was a traditionalist, rightly appalled by stories of the infamous Bodyline scandal when Jardine tried to curb Bradman’s brilliance by having his fast bowlers pitch the ball short so it reared at the batsman’s unprotected head and shoulders. 

The issue became deadly serious when captain Bill Woodfull was felled by a bouncer and the popular Bert Oldfield suffered a fractured skull. The Australian Cricket Board of Control sent furious public cables to the British cricketing authorities, and they responded in kind. Prime Minister Lyons met with the board and outlined “the severe economic hardships that could be caused if the British public boycotted Australian trade”. Gradually, the temperature lowered but sharp memories of fracas remained. 

Next came Kerry Packer’s World Series coup, the inside story of which I recently discovered researching and writing the soon-to-be-published biography of Packer’s managing director, Trevor Kennedy, “Casting His Net”. More recently we had to endure the ball-tampering scandal that I suspect will haunt Steve Smith forever, or until he writes his memoir. 

By contrast, the women’s game at Test level is played with a generosity of spirit – and a genuine pleasure in its execution – that warms the cockles of the traditional viewer. Meantime, the English men’s team, inspired by Kiwi coach Brendan McCullum have exploited the Australian dilemma brilliantly. 

But there’s something so angry and small-minded about the crowd’s heckling that it diminishes the great game itself. Even the players’ extravagant embraces when wickets fall seem tinged with spite. 

All is not lost. While ever there’s a captain like Pat Cummins there’s hope for the future; but until then, I fear, Oscar Wilde, a fellow Anglo-Irish luminary has encapsulated the chronicle in a nutshell:

“Each man kills the thing he loves; by each let this be heard; some do it with a bitter look, some with flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss…” 

robert@robertmacklin.com