As well as being a bucket list venue for players and supporters, the Sydney Cricket Ground has a reputation in England as the ground of the one-cap wonders. This is based on Mason Crane, Scott Borthwick and Boyd Rankin getting a go at the end of recent Ashes tours, rather than anything more historically substantial.
If anything, as the traditional scene for the final Test of the Australian summer, the SCG is more like the Oval – the ground where careers often come to an end. And on Friday, surrounded by his family and with a fair bit to get off his chest, Usman Khawaja confirmed the final instalment of this Ashes series, starting on Sunday, will be his international farewell.
Amusingly, there was a brief panic in the afternoon when it was announced that Steve Smith, like Khawaja a day earlier, was bringing forward his press conference. Was this the possible signposting of a second retirement by a Sydneysider? News soon followed that this was a case of the 36-year-old looking to keep his training light. Phew. One is plenty, thank you very much.
As it stands, Khawaja is the only player known to be joining those who have signed off at the SCG by choice or otherwise. There have been some good ones in the past 20 years. Virat Kohli played his last Test here 12 months ago, David Warner the same a year earlier. There was Kevin Pietersen in 2014, scapegoated for an Ashes whitewash, while eight years before came the goodbyes for Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden after that great Australia team sealed a 5-0 Ashes sweep.
The question for England is whether this fifth and final Test is similarly the end of an era – the era that, despite protestations from one of its chief architects, Brendon McCullum, has become widely known as Bazball. Three-one down with one to play, having lost the Ashes in a record-equalling 11 days, there are plenty of England supporters who would happily see it thrown off Sydney Harbour Bridge.
But while things can change – not least if the quickfire win in Melbourne is followed by a gory defeat more akin to the first three Tests – the jungle drums do not appear to be beating this way. Ben Stokes is the key figure in all this, a captain whose power comes from his all-round centrality to the side and a contract that runs until the end of the 2027 Ashes. Two days out from the match, he expressed his desire that McCullum stay on as his head coach.
While this answer may be expected on one level, it was not a given. At times the pair have diverged by way of outlook. Not least at 2-0 down when Stokes spoke of “weak men” and despite three years of telling players to apply pressure at the earliest opportunity he began digging a trench with the bat. Had they stuck to their guns at Adelaide Oval, its flat pitch might have been taken on with more than just confused caution.
But the argument from Stokes, likewise that of those higher up at the England and Wales Cricket Board, is that ripping everything up would put the team back to where it was four years ago when Ashley Giles and Chris Silverwood were ushered out after a 4-0 Ashes defeat and Joe Root fell on his sword as captain a series later.
If the status quo is to hold beyond some possible additions to the backroom staff, then there needs to be greater acceptance that, as excellent as Australia were when the Ashes was live – and not least the remarkable Mitchell Starc – this series defeat was in part self-inflicted. Light preparation was one aspect, but, more broadly, down to the lack of overall seriousness in the setup.
Liberating as this was during the first year of McCullum’s tenure, not least for established players worn down by the fug of Covid, it has not improved many newcomers and two Ashes series have been taken on as if they are any other. Ashes exceptionalism may grate in some quarters, but playing against Australia is hugely different for English cricketers, playing in Australia doubly so.
The lesser-spotted Shoaib Bashir is back in a squad of 12 for England. But unless the public meltdown that followed the two-dayer in Melbourne leads to an overcorrection and the SCG pitch is shorn of all grass, the previously unused Matthew Potts coming in for the injured Gus Atkinson is probably the only change.
For a regime ironically now keen to dig in this is one last chance to salvage something from the tour and prevent positions from becoming untenable. For the players it is a case of making sure they are part of whatever follows, rather than be swept into Sydney’s tradition for goodbyes.
