I t feels like five minutes since England were last in pristine Perth, preparing – or rather under-preparing – to win back the Ashes, only for their glass jaw to be shattered by the flashing blade of Travis Head and a two-day defeat at Optus Stadium . But 12 months on, the mood is much changed.
Beyond the fact this is merely a white-ball tour – three one-day internationals starting on Friday, followed by five Twenty20s – England’s main character energy has seemingly evaporated. Brendon McCullum is still the head coach in limited-overs cricket but no one is talking about “Bazball” or trying to sell it as some kind of sequel.
Even the West Australian newspaper has struggled to muster the same enthusiasm that had Ben Stokes dubbed a “Cocky Complainer” and Joe Root simply “Average Joe”. Jofra Archer did make its back page this week with a line about the “Poms’ daunting Perth task” – not that the reasons why were explored inside.
The fact is, there is only one story in Australian cricket right now and England are very much not it. To be honest, thanks to Usman Khawaja’s freshly published autobiography Sabr – chiefly the 22 pages that reignited the 2018 sandpaper scandal – Harry Brook’s side are barely second billing.
Aiding this on Wednesday was the decision to put Root up for media duties. Now Root is a star name, clearly, and set to play his 200th ODI this week. But he is also adept at playing the straightest of straight bats. Even when asked about the 2017-18 Ashes tour he captained – a tour that Khawaja has now said featured the hosts ball-tampering – Root calmly replied, “I don’t want to speculate,” before moving on to the cricket ahead.
The only time Root briefly engaged with the hottest of reheated topics was when asked about a common refrain in these parts – a refrain used by Khawaja among others – that every team was doing the same before Australia’s Cape Town comeuppance. “I can only speak from my own experiences,” said Root, with a shrug. “That’s not how I feel.”
But then there is no real imperative for England to wade in when they can simply watch opponents stew in their own juice. Their task is simple: to further the 50-over education of a largely inexperienced side before next year’s World Cup and get back to winning ways after a poor tri-series campaign in Pakistan .
Albeit slightly galling on one level, another difference to a year ago is the fact that England have tuned up with a proper tour match at the Waca. Their backroom staff is no longer deliberately threadbare either, with Kevin Pietersen among a raft of coaches that also features two dog-stick specialists hired from Kolkata Knight Riders.
How long sandpaper will continue to dominate the headlines is anyone’s guess. Cricket Australia has already ruled out reopening an investigation that looked rushed eight years ago and has been confirmed as hugely flawed since. But, even if this holds, the subject feels unlikely to go away any time soon.
Because for all that Khawaja has faced a backlash – some of it nasty and a fair bit misplaced, not least the notion that his wide-ranging book is just a cash grab – he has filled some gaps in the original story and exposed others. While plenty would sooner the topic went away, an appetite for the truth remains. And not least for David Warner, it seems, among the trio slapped with absurdly long bans.
People here also seem very keen to hear from Pat Cummins as the Test captain, despite the fact that he and his fellow quicks Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are being rested for this series. (As a point of order, the sardine tin schedule is to blame, rather than some cynical move to whip them out of the firing line)
Starc has already spoken this week, in fact, even if his doubling down on the joint statement the bowlers issued in 2021 feels like an increasingly semantic position. Whether Cummins takes the same path, given Khawaja has alleged the use of the sandpaper earlier on that fateful tour, remains to be seen.
Although even as the latest catalyst, Khawaja has already shown how devilishly tricky this whole topic is to navigate, having endured an awkward interview on the ABC’s 7.30 programme on Tuesday night in which he was grilled like a politician and became evasive . (Quite why he’d name names on air, having not done so in print, is another matter)
In that sense Root’s approach was wise, while overall his media conference was another example of how times have changed. Whereas his lack of a Test century on Australian soil was a regular talking point before last year’s Ashes – until he finally ticked that box – no one thought to ask about the fact he is yet to do the same in one-day cricket.
