Test cricket’s bigger picture means there is more to Ashes than who wins

E ven the prime minister has an opinion. He thinks England should pick Moeen Ali, or “that 18-year-old who played that one Test” against Pakistan in the winter, Rehan Ahmed. This time last week they projected pictures of England’s two captains, Ben Stokes and Heather Knight, on to Tower Bridge, 65m high. Bandit is teaching Bluey the meaning of cricket. The Met Office has forecast a heatwave. They’ve had a million requests for tickets to the fifth Test at the Oval. Glenn McGrath is, of course, predicting it will be 5-0 to Australia. And the talk, everywhere, is about 2005, and that series. Stuart Broad has already mentioned it. So has Ben Stokes. And Ollie Pope.

If you look with the right kind of eyes, you can see, underneath all the excitement, a certain anxious yearning for this to work. Everyone who cares about this format of the sport wants this series to be a spectacular, and for 2023 to become one of those runaway summers when the public is captivated by the Ashes. The truth is Test cricket needs it. Because the big picture, beyond all the questions about which bowlers England will pick and whether David Warner can still cut it, isn’t pretty to look at. People have been worrying about the state of cricket almost as long as they have been playing it, but just because you’re paranoid and all that. The game really is changing, and the only reason to disagree is that you haven’t been paying attention.

International cricket is scheduled in four-year blocks. The next one, between 2023 and 2027, includes 173 Test matches, which is actually 21 more than were played in the previous window, between 2019 and 2023. Look a little closer though, and you’ll see that the large part of the increase is because Zimbabwe, Afghanistan