30 July

You don’t have to like cricket to find the Ashes interesting, for what it reveals about modern life in the UK. Like Brexit and Covid, the Brits are Trumpian now, making up their own realities, despite the fact none of it matches what’s actually happening. They had a great second innings. Scoring at over 5 runs per over, that’s their new approach. But no team will ever succeed longer-term, doing that, unless it doctors pitches and is up against crap bowling. Much better batsmen than they have never managed it. They didn’t suddenly find a half-dozen batting geniuses, they’re just playing Test cricket like it’s a T20 game. On average in the longer term, that will fail, as it has in this series. The relentless fantasy narratives they’ve come up with to paper over that fact are again modern Britain. Invent your own fantasy realities, and whine like a baby when reality itself pays no attention. If the series ends up drawn 2-2, just wait for the English ‘we actually won this series’ narratives. They’ll invent all sorts of reasons they actually won, when they didn’t.