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The legendary Australian batsman was the subject of the initial serious read I remember going through as a child. To a primary school student, the unfairness of an English captain instructing his countrymen to hurt a brilliant Australian was hard to grasp. Thus, similar to countless others, I developed a dislike for England.

Anticipation for the Ashes? That's a given. Cricket’s calendar makes this a rare treat to watch two of the world’s best teams test and taunt and tease each other over what we hope will be five Tests of interrogation with the traditional red ball.

According to the celebrated all-rounder pointed out last week at the launch of the ticket draw for the 150th anniversary Test, the Ashes has a special charm. “Historically, fans globally watches the Ashes,” he said. “It's about heritage, it’s the competition, it's always full throttle.”

Across the UK, those two tightly fought contests – marked by Steve Smith’s mountain of runs and Stokes' heroic innings in 2019, and the controversial Long Room incident of 2023 – have lived up to the hype of what an Ashes contest should be. However, they have not had the equivalent resonance on the other side of the world when half of Australia falls asleep before the afternoon session begins.

In home Tests, the Ashes has been less flat out than just uneventful for over ten years. Australians expect their team to dominate easily, as it has been since the 1990s. Boland's stunning figures at the MCG wasn’t born from a fierce duel, it was a comical English collapse reinforcing perceptions. A true rivalry should not be so one-sided.

Cricket’s Town Criers Must Now Crouch Down at the Ashes’ Waning Embers and Whistle Oxygen

The English team were greeted upon arrival by a predictable front page in the city's paper, “Bazball”, supported by a portrayal of the widely respected Ben Stokes as “cocky”. The paper then had a go at “Mediocre” Root, also known as “Flop Root in Australia”. This sufficed to elicit a typical media response, enabling the media to extract every last drop in the lead-up before the series begins.

On the other hand, the previous Border-Gavaskar Trophy between the Aussies and India ignited excitement all by itself. The spiritual peak was that MCG experience, a moment that cannot be extinguished. The metrics, too, impressed. 838,000 were present across the series, the fourth highest for any series in Australia and the highest for any non-Ashes matchup. Viewers were captivated, not unlike the TV bump for India's UK visit this year, and multiple periods drew more than 2m television viewers.

Lately, the emotional if unofficial farewells of two Indian legends at the SCG made ODI matches truly significant. Compare the headline following the previous occasion England visited for a limited-overs series: “Smallest attendance for an ODI match raises fears for ODI cricket's survival”.

The Growing Clout of Indian Cricket

Although rain ruined the T20 series with India, what play we saw suggests Australia are some way off the T20 international standards. In women’s cricket, at the World Cup last month, the host nation defeated the defending champions. The all-format contest starting in Sydney is shaping up as a de facto world championship.

It’s easy to overlook the adoring blue, orange and green crowds that flock to India’s matches – across all formats – as a simple reflection of the vast diaspora of the planet's largest country. But, to bean counters and broadcast bosses, they are an boon.

The world’s largest democracy now matters more to Australia than its historical roots, given the countries share an sea, shared colonial history, and increasingly their peoples. India is set to surpass the UK, according to ABS migration data, as the source of the largest group of foreign-born Australian residents as early as this year. The failing Aukus relationship is driving a realignment of defence interests acknowledging the growing influence of Asian powers, a change that occurred years back in the cricketing world.

The former Australian skipper, who also led the Indian team, said last week that England was “our biggest traditional rival”, but added “to be fair, without India, the sport would suffer”.

The Ultimate Test

Before Australia won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy last summer, India had held it for a decade. In India, Australia haven’t won in more than 20 years. Should the hosts win back the urn comfortably this summer, failing to secure the multi-match series in India in early 2027 would make this period incomplete.

That elusive victory on the Indian soil remains the final proving ground for today's players, and a setback against England this summer – put down to an untimely injury, just like past incidents – would only fuel the story.

England have not won an Ashes Test in Australia for almost 15 years, and as rich as the lore may be, it won't support a lopsided rivalry forever. So, with a vibrant Indian team having recently departed, Ben Stokes’s players have a lot at stake. Win the series and remain significant. Or surrender the trophy and with it something that can’t be won back: the claim to Australia’s greatest rivalry. We beg the English, just be good.