All We Want for Christmas

 …is an Ashes Win!!

Well, its finally here, the 2025/26 Ashes Cricket Series in Australia kicks off on November 21st in Perth!

By the time you read this of course you will already know the outcome of that first test and will be (hopefully) looking forward to the 4 remaining battles, as England take on our colonial cousins and attempt to win their first Ashes Series in the land of the vegemite sandwich, since 2011.

Yes Cricket fans, that’s a whopping 15 years since we managed to beat the Aussies in their back-yard with our first Ashes victory, home or away, since 2015.  That’s 11 years of having to listen to them crow, continually sneer about ‘Baz-Ball’ and patronise/mock our cricketing legends.

Take the imperious Joe Root for example.  He is currently the number one ranked batsman in the world, and yet, since arriving for the series, has faced a barrage of media mocking due to his failure to score a test hundred in Australia!

Never-mind that there is no one in the team even close to him in terms of runs scored and ability (for the record, only Steve Smith, who is 4th appears in the worlds Top-10 for the Aussies), the mocking has been relentless and here lies the real challenge of an Ashes series Down Under.

The battle for supremacy takes place as much off the field as on it and in the head of  touring teams.  The Aussies are in it together, players, former players, fans and media alike all team up to make the tour as difficult for the visiting Poms as possible – media slander, coordinated attacks on individuals and general national sneering all combine to try and unsettle the tourists and put them off their game.

But it won’t be a surprise to England’s elite cricketers that this kind of treatment is coming – the only unknown so far is who will replace the superb Stuart Broad as England’s most hated sportsman!  For years, Broad played the pantomime villain in every Ashes series and now that he is retired, we await his replacement with a weary, knowing smile!!

My money is on Captain-Fantastic Ben Stokes as the major target for country-wide sledging, but Stokes will thrive upon the abuse and will prove to be as fired-up by it as Broad was.

By now – the build-up and hype will be over and we will know who came away from Perth’s first encounter with a precious first win (I’ll say it – I’m predicting an England victory) and the war will be underway.

Hopefully, England will win back the Ashes and put our cousins down- under back in their box! 

My prediction – 3 – 1 to the boys with 3 lions on their shirts!!

Come on Santa; it’s all I want for Christmas!