It's Not Just a Game

Why the Ashes isn't just another cricket match

Over at Thinking Faith, I write about where I was when Ian Botham turned around the Headingly Test Match in 1981, before Bob Willis bowled out Australia almost single-handedly, pulling off a famous victory. I write about the weight of history in the tournament – and our memories of previous series - giving the Ashes a kind of significance that provides meaning for which many are craving.

Photo by Mark Stuckey on Unsplash

It’s Just A Game

This might sound like an absurd statement to the Christian, who believes there is no true meaning outside the gospel of Jesus Christ, or to those immune to sport, who think that sport is just a game. I understand that. Logically, I should not feel incredibly excited that an Ashes series is starting. But I do.

It’s like waiting for the next series of Stranger Things and Slow Horses. The forthcoming series is another season in a classic sporting boxed set that is going to be written on the fly by some really exciting players (like Harry Brook), some old classics (like Jimmy Anderson) and a few new returning stars (like Moeen Ali). And then there’s Ben Stokes, who creates his own reality field, somehow bending events to his will, like when he carried England over the line in that majestic innings at Headingly in 2019.

And this is a TV series where there are no spoilers. We have no idea how it’s going to turn out. Sometimes a series feels like it will be one-sided, like the last tour of Australia. The whole thing can be typified by the very first ball. I can remember lying in bed, away from home at a trustee meeting, listening to Rory Burns get bowled out first ball of the series. Is that a golden duck? A diamond duck? Is there even a substance precious enough to describe being out first ball of an Ashes series?

But the predictions can be wrong. No one gave Mike Gatting’s team a chance when they went to Australia in 1986/87 and yet they prevailed. The uncertainty brings the excitement.

There are other reasons why this series seems to matter so much. The teams are like cousins, since many Australians come from the United Kingdom, expelled from their homeland like Ishmael from the land of Abraham. This makes the contest more personal. The teams are cousins who speak the same language – more or less – and yet live almost as far away from each other as geographically possible. And every few years, they come together to fight it out on the cricket field.

And there’s the length of the tournament. The five matches can each last up to five days, giving time for plots, sub-plots, mini-battles and skirmishes, as well as comebacks and second chances.

I could write more about being at the Oval in 2005 when England won the Ashes after years of hurt, or ‘that ball’ by Warne against Gatting. But you can read more over at Thinking Faith.

And you can watch this wonderful sketch by Mitchell and Webb about how sport can get out of hand, stops being special and become merely sport for the sake of it:

The Wrong Bavinck

How do Christians engage with the culture? What are possible points of contact? Is civil conversation even possible?

That’s what we talk about on the latest episode of the Cooper and Cary podcast when we managed to get our Bavincks in a twist. Thankfully, Dan Strange was on hand to do some untwisting. Just who is J H Bavinck, and why should we care? (NOT to be confused with his better-known uncle *Herman* Bavinck - ha ha! as if anyone would be THAT stupid!). What does J H Bavinck have to tell us about missions, cultural engagement, and how to have a civil conversation? The word of the podcast is "elenctics". That's "elenctics".