I was expecting my first post on this cricket blog to be an explanation of my strapline: The frustrating life of an England cricket fan.  However, as I am writing this during the 2013 Ashes Test in Melbourne I don’t think any further explanation is needed.

I have been an England fan for over thirty years and have had to endure humiliation after ritual humiliation.  Friends and colleagues who are either not cricket fans at all or who are supporters of their own home nation are always surprised that England cricket fans can reel off precise details of moments of glory: Graham Gooch’s 333 against India at Lord’s in 1990 (and 123 in the second innings too – I was there); Michael Atherton’s heroic 185 not out at Johannesburg in 1995; ‘Botham’s Ashes’ in 1981, especially his 50 and 149 not out at Headingley (where he also took 6 for 95).  The reason we all know of these feats and can quote them at the drop of a hat is that they have been so few and far between.  They are the occasional beacons in which we can bask amidst the otherwise uninterrupted Stygian gloom.

The grimly repetitive script was of middle order collapses – even when the top order had given us a start that, for any other nation, would have meant that an impressive total was inevitable – and an inability to finish off the tail even when our bowlers had taken the first few wickets relatively cheaply.  Apparently, we just didn’t know how to win.  Indeed, we almost seemed frightened of doing so.

Then, at last, things began to change.  Michael Vaughan’s England stopped the rot and, little by little, England began to climb up the rankings.  Suddenly, us loyal fans approached a test series wondering what the outcome would be, instead of debating by how much we would lose.  After Vaughan’s much lamented retirement, Andrew Strauss took it one stage further and we now seemed more likely to win than lose.  Finally, let my joy be unconfined, England were top of the world rankings.  I had been waiting for this moment for thirty years.  Of course, I never believed this heralded an equal period of three decades of world supremacy, but I did allow myself to hope that we could have four or five years at number one, with perhaps another decade or so somewhere in the top three.

That is why this Ashes tour has been so disappointing and depressing.  It is a return to those dark days that we thought had been banished – at least for a while.  Good starts followed by the most bewildering of collapses – in the day that has just finished the last five wickets were lost in 40 balls for just six, yes SIX, runs.  Mediocre Australian tails that have been allowed to wag for far too long – the 40 put on for the final wicket of the first Australian innings in Melbourne may yet prove to be decisive.

So the frustration seems set to continue.  There are, of course, some positives and I will return to those in a future post but, for now, it is forlornly familiar.  I just hope that the England players – who have the ultimate privilege of representing their country – realise how badly they are letting down their loyal followers and, indeed, the nation as a whole.

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