So we met on Friday as a group and decided that this seemed like a good idea after all. Everyone had their ideas on how they viewed the game and how they would approach these writing assignments. Not an assignment in the classical “homework” sense, maybe think of it more as a writing gig. This might evolve, but the good thing is we all have a unique lens through which we view this game, and hopefully, you, the reader, can get to know each of us a little better through our work and words.

I, for one, struggle to put my current relationship with the game in words. A “cricket cynic” is probably the closest I can think of, but it doesn’t quite do it justice. Imagine someone recently falling head over heels in love with something or someone. Someone who can see nothing but purity and love in whatever their beloved (human, religion, politician, dog, whatever) does. Someone who will read every single news article that praises the object of their affection and broadcast it to everyone on every single social media outlet that they can access. Almost certainly, you have met someone like this. Now take this certain someone, and for a moment try to visualize the exact opposite of this person. In a single line, that is me when it comes to this game. I used to be a fan. A fanatic, even. What happened is not worth going into in this post. Maybe in subsequent episodes, we can get to that sometime.

Now all I am is a jilted lover.

But I am also a father to an 11-year-old boy who absolutely adores the game. Probably even more than what I did when I was his age. And while I may have fallen out of love with the game, I also love spending time talking about the game with him, just as much as I used to talking about the game with my own dad and granddad when I was 12. Cricket was our bond. Cricket was our language. We used cricket lingo in mundane, day-to-day things like “when you enter the room, stand under the ceiling fan, and the item you’re looking for will be roughly square leg or maybe even midwicket.” Cricket was what we spoke about, Cricket was what we fought about.

And we all hated England. Passionately.

So it was that this past Sunday (a.k.a. Father’s Day 2023), keeping my personal feelings aside, the two of us put an alarm on our respective phones for 5.30 in the morning to maintain a decades-long family tradition of hating the English watching the Ashes.

The next course of action was to set up the entertainment. A week prior, we moved into a new house. Said house has a large attic with a projector screen and a decent surround sound system. We decided to watch the game there – it would be the closest thing to watching it inside the stadium. But that required some technical skills, as the projector wasn’t set up for live streaming. We’d have to unplug the HDMI connection of the DVD player and put in the Amazon Fire Stick on the TV downstairs. I looked over my shoulder to look at my boy.

Even in the 6 am dimness, his eyes shone with excitement. The look in his eyes was pretty much the same that I had one Saturday during the summer of 1989 when I was eleven myself when my father had strung a copper wire out of his bedroom window over to the other side of the house to connect the radio antenna to the TV aerial, all so that we could listen to the Ashes on BBC shortwave radio on Test Match Special (which played only Saturdays). A look that showed he had zero idea what was going on, but there was complete trust that Dad knew what he was doing.

Anyway, the said technical issue was resolved fairly quickly. And we ensconced ourselves to watch the game on the big screen. We were there just in time to watch my first live cricket ball in the past six years.

Pat Cummins to Joe Root. Best bowler in the world to the best batter in the world. The game is tantalizingly poised.

First ball.

Aimed at the top of off stump, just like Terry Alderman probably did all those years ago.

Greeted with a reverse sweep hook that failed completely, unlike anything I’ve seen in a test match before.