Ashes diary: story of summer begins in baking, boozy Brum

Laura Wright, last seen by England fans faultlessly executing the nation’s first major public rendition of God Save the King at last year’s Test against South Africa at the Oval, was back on anthem duties, only this time she was not only singing them but signing them, with backing signals from the Knotty Ash Signing Choir and the Liverpool Signing Choir. For the first time the entire build-up to an England Test was signed, with the toss and captains’ interviews accompanied on the big screens (this is being seen as a pilot and will be repeated on the first day of the women’s Test at Trent Bridge, while two members of the England team who brought home the Deaf Ashes last year have pre-recorded toss results to use across the summer). The interpretation of the loud cheer that followed England winning the toss and choosing to bat thus became the day’s first, but certainly not the last, double fist-pump.

The players enjoyed quite the entry – fireworks, walls of fire, the whole works – as they emerged for the anthems. Just before their arrival Sir Alastair Cook deposited the Ashes urn atop a plinth for the players to file past, a plinth adorned with the four words “we are England cricket”. This is the ECB’s catchphrase, trademarked in 2016 for applications including deodorants, baby food, shoe horns, commemorative goods made of cane, cork, reed, horn, bone, ivory or shell, for “leather picture frames incorporating a clock face” and, importantly, display stands such as the plinth upon which the urn had been placed. The ECB literally is England cricket, so the catchphrase might not be particularly imaginative but it does tend to apply to most situations they need a catchphrase for. But the Ashes have not been won by the English