England won The Ashes series in 2009 by a margin of 2-1.
The Ashes series is an event, for which players put everything on the line. It is surely one of the most celebrated series in the history of the game. The size of the trophy does not do justice to the impact which the series has on the emotions. The five-match riveting series is set to be played on Australian soil this time. Australia will host England for The Ashes in November this year. The series will kick-off in Perth, and Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane will be the other four venues. But as riveting the cricket gets, there is a cost to it.
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Former England all-rounder Ravi Bopara has opened up about one such incident, which occurred during the Ashes series of 2009. In an interview with The Guardian, Bopara spoke about an the event, which took place after the first innings of the opening Test. Andy Flower, who is now the head coach for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), was then at England’s coaching helm. Bopara was unable to read a slower delivery from Mitchell Johnson, and was dismissed at a crucial juncture.
He said that after he was dismissed in the first innings, the head coach scheduled a meeting with Bopara in his hotel room. Till this point, things were absolutely fine. The England all-rounder was getting adjusted to the new role of batting at three, which is not easy for a player to do. Bopara expected the meeting to go down well, but was completely taken aback with the way things unfolded.
Bopara said that Flower did not mince his words at all. He went, “Do you know who’s batting No 3 for Australia? Ricky Ponting! And he’s just got 150!” To this, Bopara responded saying, “I’ll try and get a hundred in the second innings.”
“You better. Because we will end up losing the Test match because of you”, the reply flew back from Flower.
For a batter who has spent most of his career batting in the middle-order, it is extremely difficult to adapt to the repercussions of batting at No.3. To add to that, the conditions in England add to the difficulties for the top-order batters. The ball does a lot more than here, in the subcontinent and batters have to adapt quickly to stay at the crease. The Dukes ball used to do a lot more in those days, as compared to the controversies today. The recently concluded Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy saw a lot of controversies with the ball, involving the manufacturer. One can imagine how challenging a task it might have been for Bopara.
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After his meeting with the head coach after the first innings of the first Test, Bopara went into a nutshell. In the subsequent innings, he registered scores of 27, 18, 23, 0 and 1. When he got a chance to play Test cricket again, he was unable to cross the fifty-run mark. He was coming on the back of three consecutive Test tons against the West Indies. Confidence can do a lot to a player, and lack of it can take everything away from the player.
“I know he didn’t mean that. It was his way of getting me going. But on reflection, I went into my shell. I thought that he doesn’t rate me. And after that, I was just nowhere for the rest of the series. I was so nervous about batting, and I just felt like eyes were staring at me”, said Bopara, reflecting on his series after the first Test.
