Why Aussies are rooting for the Poms

Sydney

First, a macabre coincidence. The last Ashes series, the eighth straight pitiful England capitulation, started days after the Bali bombing which killed 88 Australians and 26 British travellers. Now, as the Lord’s Test begins, London reels from the atrocious targeting of morning commuters.

The recent bombings have evoked enormous and deserved admiration for stoical Londoners. Down in the convict colony, headline writers and cartoonists have utterly exhausted the clichés depicting ye-olde-Dart-never-surrender-stiff-upper-lipped-British-bulldog spirit. Still, as cricketing hostilities resume, you’d think there’d be scant room for sentiment. Australians, you’d reckon, would be rooting for Ricky Ponting’s worldbeaters to humiliate the Poms over the coming months. And you’d be dead wrong. Many of us, I’d argue a comfortable majority, pray that the current Test series is close. Of that bunch, a significant minority indulges in the probably vain hope that Michael Vaughan’s side can conjure a preposterous victory.

Prime Minister John Howard is merely the most prominent Aussie hoping that England scares the creams off the tourists.