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The legendary Australian batsman was the focus of the first adult book I remember reading as a youngster. To a young pupil, the unfairness of an English captain instructing his teammates to hurt a brilliant Australian was hard to grasp. And so, like many, I developed a dislike for England.

Excitement about the Ashes? It goes without saying. Cricket’s calendar makes this a special occasion to observe two of the top cricketing nations test and taunt and tease each other over what we hope will be five Tests of intense competition with the red Kookaburra.

According to the celebrated all-rounder pointed out last week at the launch of the ticket draw for the 150th anniversary Test, the Ashes has a unique appeal. “Traditionally, fans globally watches the Ashes,” he said. “It’s the tradition, it’s the competition, it's always full throttle.”

In England, those two tightly fought contests – marked by Smith's prolific scoring and Ben Stokes’ Headingley masterpiece in 2019, and the controversial Long Room incident of 2023 – have lived up to the hype of what an Ashes battle should be. Yet, they have not had the equivalent resonance on the other side of the world when many locals nods off before the afternoon session begins.

In home Tests, the Ashes has been more subdued than just uneventful for more than a decade. Fans down under anticipate their team to win and win handily, as it has been since the nineties. Boland's stunning figures at the MCG wasn’t wrought in a furnace of competition, it was English tragicomedy confirming a worldview. A true rivalry should not be this way.

Cricket’s Town Criers Need to Crouch Down at the Fading Glow and Fan the Flames

The English team were greeted upon arrival by a tired headline in the local tabloid, “Baz Bawl”, accompanied by a description of the highly regarded Ben Stokes as “cocky”. The publication then had a go at “Mediocre” Root, also known as “Dud Root Down Under”. It was enough to elicit a typical media response, enabling the press to extract every last drop in the days before the series begins.

In contrast, last year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy between Australia and India sparked something on its own. The spiritual peak was the Melbourne match, a memory that cannot be extinguished. The metrics, also, impressed. Over 800,000 attended the five Tests, the fourth highest for any contest in Australia and the highest for any non-Ashes matchup. Audiences were entranced, not unlike the TV bump for India’s tour of England this year, and multiple periods drew more than 2m television viewers.

Lately, the touching send-offs of two Indian legends at the Sydney Cricket Ground made ODI matches truly significant. Contrast the news title following the previous occasion England visited for a limited-overs series: “Smallest attendance for an ODI match raises fears for ODI cricket's survival”.

The Growing Clout of Indian Cricket

Although bad weather disrupted the short-format games with India, the action that occurred indicates Australia are lagging behind the short form’s global benchmark. For the women's game, at the World Cup last month, the home side knocked off the defending champions. The all-format contest starting in Sydney is shaping up as a unofficial world title decider.

It’s easy to dismiss the adoring blue, orange and green crowds that flock to India’s matches – across all formats – as a simple reflection of the huge expat community of the planet's largest country. But, to bean counters and broadcast bosses, they are an elixir.

India now matters more to Australia than its historical roots, given the nations have in common an sea, shared colonial history, and increasingly their peoples. India is set to surpass the UK, per official statistics, as the source of the largest group of foreign-born Australian residents as soon. The failing Aukus relationship is driving a realignment of security priorities acknowledging the rising power of regional giants, a change that long ago happened in the cricketing world.

Greg Chappell, who also coached India, noted last week that England was “our biggest traditional rival”, but also that “to be fair, without India, the sport would suffer”.

The Ultimate Test

Before Australia won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy last summer, India had held it for a decade. In India, Australia haven’t won in over two decades. Even if the home side reclaim the Ashes comfortably this summer, losing the five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India in the coming years would make this period unfulfilled.

That elusive victory on the subcontinent remains the final proving ground for today's players, and a setback against England this summer – attributed to an untimely injury, similar to past incidents – would only add to the narrative.

England have not secured a victory in Australia for almost 15 years, and despite the history, it won't support a one-sided contest indefinitely. So, with a gaudy, engrossing India having recently departed, Ben Stokes’s players have a lot at stake. Win the series and stay relevant. Or lose the urn and with it an irreplaceable asset: the claim to Australia’s greatest rivalry. We beg the English, just be good.