David Foot: Get ready for the Ashes - one of sports great clashes
Ricky Ponting has implied that this year's Ashes are being fought by traditional antagonists who actually quite like each other. Enough of that, even if we are tempted, based on muted pre-series scorn and hype, to agree.
Or could it be a double bluff ? The Australians, who arrive at Cardiff next week for the opening Test, will miss the varying brilliance of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. They may not be the red-hot favourites after all
Ponting is a canny assessor. We can assume England's contentious treatment of him at Trent Bridge in 2005 continues to simmer. That was when – remember? – he was run out by a substitute fielder, introduced, it was claimed, because he was fresh and agile. It led to a high-decibel spat between Ponting and England's Duncan Fletcher
The Ashes is cricket's greatest competition, brimming with endeavour, legitimate (most of the time), cunning moments of exceptional play as the tactics sway. Crowds may not quite compare with a Premier League football match or even Wimbledon. But it retains its own magical aura, historic and memory-stirring.
And, of course, not all those memories are cordial. We can go all the way back to the magnificent, despotic WG, who demonstrated so unconcernedly the black arts of gamesmanship. Didn't he once, at The Oval, run-out an Aussie opponent when almost everyone thought the ball was dead?
Grace was far from the only offender over the Ashes years. What about Warwick Armstrong, a mesmeric touring skipper, who once hit a triple hundred against Somerset at Bath?
He was a tetchy leader – and a bulky one. When he played his first Test he weighed 10 stone. His weight was more than twice that at the time of his final and 50th match against England.
In 1921 he clashed with Lord Tennyson over an intended declaration just before the close of play on the second day, after the first had been rained off. He won his argument, as he often did also in differences with his own country's officials.
England eventually played for a draw in that tense game. It was all too much for Armstrong. He rested his normal bowlers, retiring to the outfield himself to read a newspaper during play. Why did he do that, he was asked? His angry reply was: "So that I can see who we're meant to be playing."
The background to the Ashes has always been punctuated by sledging. On occasions it is brutally cruel and certainly not suitable until after the TV watershed .
England used to give it back, though it lacked the same wit and venom.
The Bodyline taunt, directed – and partly deserved – at our captain, Douglas Jardine, remains by some distance the most controversial episode of all. Gubby Allen, Bill Bowes and our own Wally Hammond, all on the tour, were uneasy about the whole leg-theory concept.
There were many instances that brought discredit and a relish to the numerous series. What of the Sydney Test in the early 1970s when John Snow was warned about his dangerous short-pitch bowling?
Later, when fielding near the boundary, he was snatched by a spectator. Ray Illingworth led his players off.
What of that fiery, unfriendly quickie Jeff Thomson who, a few summers later, was quoted as saying he liked to see blood on the pitch. Emotive stuff, indeed, and compounded by the rumpus over Dennis Lillee's aluminium bat.
And what about the notorious stand-off between Ian Chappell, a fine skipper it must be said, and Ian Botham. At least one dust-up has gone into Ashes legend.. The Australians had a go at Tony Lock, who they argued had an illegal bowling action. The Ashes has been a long-running drama, on occasions almost veering to open warfare. Certainly, England have not been blameless. But the Ashes has, too, a compelling and unique quality. Bring it on – with Ricky Ponting's encouraging words to help it on its way.
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