As with many Australians in their mid-30s, my feeling of summer is inextricably linked with cricket on Channel Nine. Childhood memories of dominant Australian teams are always processed through the medium of television, with vision taking primacy over the other senses. But this summer was something different. Living on the other side of the world, still unaccustomed to cold Decembers, the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar series evoked something else. For me this series will be remembered through flashes of audio, and through the radio broadcasts that provided the soundtrack to a wonderful and busy winter unlike any in my life thus far.
It started with normal enough cricket watching circumstances for day one in Perth: working from home while keeping an eye on proceedings via the TV broadcast streaming on a second screen. Australia dominated the first day, but on day two the match took a turn, as did my circumstances. I listened to a rousing India fightback led by the genius of Bumrah with Flemish landscapes rolling by my train window. Upon my arrival at the Bruges Christmas market for today’s adventure, Jaiswal had taken India to a lead of 218 with all ten wickets in hand. Australia didn’t manage to mount a convincing response, and very quickly they were down 0-1, and vultures on the sidelines had already begun to circle.
By the time the cricketers had made their way to Adelaide I had made my way to Tübingen, in South-West Germany. The early back-and-forth on day one was my backdrop to an early morning run, followed by a walking tour of the city. With my headphones tucked discreetly beneath my beanie I had the feeling of doing something clandestine, deriving a secret pleasure from a faraway cultural delicacy unknown to the German crowds around me. While Starc scythed through the Indian top order, I explored the local cultural delicacies at the annual Tübingen chocolate festival. Later in the day touring the citadel I held in a chuckle as Adam Collins on SEN described the floodlights going out once, and then a second time during the evening session, but Australia held firm through Labuschagne and McSweeney.
For the second day in Adelaide, I was deeper in the Black Forest and had decided on another early morning run, this time along the picturesque river Würm. As I laced up my running shoes, the test was on a knife edge – a strong first hour from India could have them back in front. But by the time I’d reached my turnaround point, Travis Head was well on his way to strumming a hundred of the highest quality. I instinctively increased my pace, perhaps reflecting some subconscious attempt to match Head’s acceleration, before realising what I was doing and reining it back in. After I showered and sat down to breakfast, Australia had reached a dominant position they would not cede for the remainder of the test.
The next day was set up beautifully. On balance of probabilities India were likely to set the perfect target for an Australian fan: big enough to be interesting, but small enough to be confident of chasing it down. In a stroke of serendipity, I had a seven hour drive back home. At least for the first half of the drive, I thought, I’ll be able to listen to it all unfold. Alas, India collapsed in a heap and the test was won before I even got onto the highway. The series sat at 1-1.
The Brisbane test is tied with feelings of impatience. Back at home in France I was impatient for the Brisbane rain clouds to move along, but they insisted on hanging around long enough to wipe out most of days one and three. At work, my colleagues and I were desperate for stumps to be called on our very long year and for the Christmas break to begin. I was even more over it than most, even going so far as to hand in my notice mid-test. Suddenly a third kind of impatience hit home as the length of my three-month notice period suddenly stretched out to infinity before me. What is it about December that makes March seem impossibly far away? In the end, too much time was lost to rain and Brisbane fizzled to a draw. The Christmas break arrived at the scheduled time, giving players and fans alike a much-needed chance to take a breath.
Then there was Melbourne. The series was locked at 1-1 and the news cycle in the longer break between tests gave rise to the feeling that the series could swing swiftly and conclusively in either direction. Christmas Day dawned clear and sunny in the midlands, but by noon a deep, thick fog had rolled in, the kind of pea soup that makes every street seem eerie even in the middle of the day. The Christmas Day festivities in Coventry finished just as the anthems finished at the MCG, and the madness of the Sam Konstas assault in the first session will forever be linked with that long drive home. The fog that was somewhat eerie at noon had thickened in the darkness, turning the English countryside from quaint to creepy. Sitting in the back passenger seat, I held my phone right up to my ear with the radio on the lowest volume so as not to disturb the other passengers. I could barely see a thing out the window, and I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. By lunch the energy of the series had changed, even if the scoreboard didn’t reflect anything more significant than Australia’s relatively modest 112 for 1.
The rest of Melbourne is linked with Stonehenge, Oxford, and Bath. I touristed through England by day, and sat in my wife’s godmother’s kitchen at night, listening to the Australian team inch their way to a dominant position session by session after everyone else was asleep. My lack of sleep slowly caught up to me over the course of five long full days – imagine a test match lasting five days!? – to the point where I conceded defeat and went to bed at lunch on day five, with India three wickets down and all results still on the table. I lay in bed remembering guiltily the similar circumstances in which I abandoned a day five with the result in the balance a few years ago, and the shock of waking up to hear that Ben Stokes had lit Headingley on fire. But this time my worst fears had not come to pass, and I woke to the news that Australia had secured a 2-1 advantage going to the SCG.
The fifth test in Sydney belongs in my aunt and uncle’s living room in Birmingham. Sitting on the couch by the Christmas tree, wrapped up warm, I kept my vigil over proceedings in a quietly sleeping house. Before play started on day one I misplaced my phone at the bottom of a canal near the Cadbury factory, cutting off my access to a VPN. Therefore it was the ABC broadcast team (via the BBC) instead of my preferred SEN who painted the picture of my home cricket ground through the lowest-scoring test of the series. Momentum swung back and forth for the first two days, with Boland leading the Australian attack despite being the least experienced at the top level. After shouldering an incredible load over four-and-a-half tests and turning in one of the all-time great test series performances, Bumrah was finally showing signs of fatigue. With the end of the test match looking likely on day three and no stint of driving awaiting me as there was after day five in Melbourne, I steeled myself and settled in for the long haul. Australia did me the favour of cleaning up the last four wickets quickly, and after a wobble Head and Webster took me right to the end, with Beau hitting the winning runs on debut.
Stumbling bleary-eyed into bed I had the satisfaction of seeing the series through to the end, only regretting missing the last session in Melbourne. I was sad to have reached the end of the Australian test summer, but felt privileged to have been able to ride every rise and fall along the way. It was perhaps not the greatest test series of our time, but certainly a very good one, with storylines and drama aplenty. Thanks to the radio, I was gifted some beautiful memories that I will treasure for a lifetime.
Cricket Described 