THE DEBATE: Should Australia come to England every two years?

Are England facing the Australians too often, or can we not get enough of the rivalry?

Huw Turbervill, Managing editor

I had a grisly dream during this summer’s England v Australia five-match ODI series. In this era of ever shorter tours and the threat to Test cricket, I prophesised that the format would be the Ashes series of the future. Imagine the slogan: ‘England v Australia – 150 years of history. Five ODIs. Over 12 whole days. An epic encounter between the old enemies.’

The last match at Old Trafford actually turned out to be rather gripping; the third at Trent Bridge was a gluttonous annihilation; the others were anodyne and one sided. That is not really anyone’s fault, however.

The Aussie pace attack was decapitated by injury. The tourists’ spirit had been crushed by ‘sandpapergate’. Tim Paine’s task was as thankless as Mike Denness’ leading England in Australia in 1974/75; or Graham Yallop’s, skippering the hosts in 1978/79. The administrators could not have known how wretched the Aussies would be when they arranged the series. What they should know, do know if we are honest, however, is that having the Australians here every two years (more if you count their presence for World Cups and Champions Trophies) is overkill.

Their arrival on these shores is meant to be special. Their opening match (it used to be against Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk’s XI at wonderful Arundel) is precious. Their meetings with England every two years (home or away) leaves enough time between for anticipation to build up. Yes, I know Andrew Strauss wanted England to have some extra 50-over practice ahead of next summer’s World Cup. I also listened to Nasser Hussain’s argument in The Cricketer last issue that
if the games sold out (as they largely did), then the enterprise would be justified.

I still do not like it, though. This summer’s series was a fiasco. A circus. When it comes to scheduling top sport, let us never forget what PT Barnum said: “Always leave them wanting more.”

Tom Gibbs (The Cricketer’s business development manager)

Great rivalries are played out year after year in all sports. Take club football – the top English (and Welsh) divisions feature a plethora of derby matches and despite the damp squib usually provided by the more high-profile fixtures – think Liverpool v Manchester United – the build-up to the next is no less feverish, the fans no less desperate for bragging rights and a game to remember.

In international sport, rugby union’s crunch fixture, England v Wales, loses none of its fire or passion on its annual yo-yo across the Severn Bridge. Why cannot the same be true of cricket’s greatest rivalry? We do not need to starve ourselves of one of the sport’s showpiece spectacles because we need to adhere to a historical timetable that no doubt originally existed because it took six months to have any kind of tour at all.

We have just seen six games of cricket, played in front of full houses, at six superb grounds – four of which were on weekdays. From a commercial standpoint it has been a huge success, even more so from a cricketing point of view – Australia were depleted, but as a confidence-building exercise for England it has been ideal.

Maybe the commercial angle is where the antipathy comes in for this being a regular occurrence. It is seen as a cash cow. It probably is, and providing the revenue is cleverly managed, that does not mean we should not enjoy milking it.

After the beating we took in last winter’s Ashes, something like this shows how quickly the game can change. It is not a Test series win, but it is still great to beat Australia in front of an engaged and partisan English crowd, so why not give us more opportunities to do it? To paraphrase Samuel Johnson – when you’re tired of beating Australia, you’re tired of life.