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Neck-and-neck Ashes series shapes up · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Kristin Amio.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, November twenty one, twenty twenty five. New South
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Wales opposition leader Mark Speakman has stepped down, making way
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  Speaker 1: for first term MP Kelly Sloan to take over the
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  Speaker 1: Liberal leadership.
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  Speaker 2: This morning, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping,
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  Speaker 2: the jacarandas were blooming, and I was on breakfast radio
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  Speaker 2: and on TV and staying that I would be continuing
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  Speaker 2: as Liberal Party leader. At that stage, no alternative candidate
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  Speaker 2: had come forward to tell me they wanted to be
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  Speaker 2: the leader. No colleague had said to me they thought
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  Speaker 2: it would be better if I resigned. But as I said,
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  Speaker 2: a day, or even half a day or a few
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: hours is a long time in politics.
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  Speaker 1: It follows days of speculation about Speakman's future and comes
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  Speaker 1: in the same week as the ousting of his Victorian
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  Speaker 1: counterpart Brad Baton. The first Test cricket match of the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five men's Ashes series gets underway at Perth
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  Speaker 1: Stadium today and with two of the most evenly matched
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  Speaker 1: teams in decades, it's shaping up to be one hell
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  Speaker 1: of a contest. That's today's episode. Back in the late
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, Australia's fledgling national team clocked up its first
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Test cricket win on English soil. British newspaper The Sporting
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Times declared in a satirical obituary that English cricket was dead.
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  Speaker 3: The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.
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  Speaker 3: England's vow to retain the title spawned one of the
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  Speaker 3: fiercest rivalries in sport, with both teams meeting every couple
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  Speaker 3: of years for a series of five Test matches.
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  Speaker 2: There is nothing sweet out of the boxing day hundred
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  Speaker 2: and then the most dramatic circumstance is.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that is the ball of the summer right there.
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  Speaker 3: That's just about unhittable, England crushing down.
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  Speaker 4: Three thousand MSJ just match one if the Bold's finding.
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  Speaker 1: Time ashes on the back of a hometown hero. Today,
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  Speaker 1: almost one hundred and fifty years later, the Australian and
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  Speaker 1: English men's Test cricket teams will meet on the pitch
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  Speaker 1: at Perth Stadium for the first Test in the twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five twenty twenty six Ashes series.
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  Speaker 4: We've never had a close Ashes series in Australia in
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  Speaker 4: our lifetime.
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  Speaker 3: Robert Craddick is a senior sports journalist.
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  Speaker 4: Australian normally wins easily, and the two times they've lost
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  Speaker 4: in the last forty years, they lost easily. So we've
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  Speaker 4: been secretly craving the thriller, the one that goes to
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  Speaker 4: the last of five tests, that builds up and goes
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  Speaker 4: back and forth, and this could be the one.
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  Speaker 1: What's the vibe like behind closed doors ahead of a
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  Speaker 1: test like the first Test in Perth that the general
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  Speaker 1: public maybe doesn't get to see.
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  Speaker 4: There's a lot of nerves coming into the Ashes. And
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  Speaker 4: a small anecdote for you. Joe Ruth in England Star,
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  Speaker 4: who's the world's second most experienced Test batsman in terms
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: of runs. Only Sash and Tendulk has scored more. He
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  Speaker 4: was playing a trial game a couple of weeks ago,
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  Speaker 4: getting ready for the tour in Perth and looked as
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  Speaker 4: nervous as any of the players they've ever seen him.
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  Speaker 4: Because he never score a century in Australia, there's a
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  Speaker 4: lot of pressure on him and this is the start
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  Speaker 4: of his probably his last campaign in Australia. So here's
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  Speaker 4: this guy a decorated giant of the game, perhaps England's
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  Speaker 4: best player ever, and this little trial game out at
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  Speaker 4: lie Kill was suddenly barely nervous. And just that's what
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: the ashes can do to your pressure expectation. It could
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  Speaker 4: make the most experienced and hardy of souls feel vulnerable.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It's been something of an uncertain run up for the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Australian squad. In particular, we had captain Pat Cummins was
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: ruled out the first Test some time ago due to
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  Speaker 1: that back injury. The reliable fast bowler Josh Hazelwood was
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: also ruled out due to a hamstring injury last week,
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  Speaker 1: and there's been a question mark overhaul open Australia's batting
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  Speaker 1: attack with usman Kwaja following the retirement of David Warner
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  Speaker 1: after last summer. Do you think that's affecting the mood
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  Speaker 1: inside the Australian camp right now.
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  Speaker 4: I think it has robbed have a little bit of confidence.
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  Speaker 4: I think without Pat Cummins there that's significant because it's
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  Speaker 4: one thing to change your opening batsman and it's one
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  Speaker 4: thing to miss Josh Hazwood. But Cummins is a tremendously
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  Speaker 4: pacifying force in this team. He's Captain cool. It's just
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  Speaker 4: great thats set on the best and worst days, she
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  Speaker 4: still has that come and smile and she it's an
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  Speaker 4: underrated quality because it's one thing being a tactical genius
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  Speaker 4: in the field, which he probably isn't, but that he
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  Speaker 4: radiates coolness and calmness, and not having him there thou
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  Speaker 4: miss that nearly as much as he's bowling.
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  Speaker 1: On Thursday, after weeks of speculation, all rounder Bo Webster
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  Speaker 1: was dropped from Australia's starting eleven in favor of Debutane's
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  Speaker 1: Jake Weatherald and Brendan Doggett.
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  Speaker 4: For starter gives excitement and freshness to it. And there
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  Speaker 4: are two great stories. Jake Weatherall has been to helen
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  Speaker 4: back as a cricketer. He's in his thirties now, but
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  Speaker 4: on the way up, his game was in really poor
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  Speaker 4: state and he was having suicidal thoughts and his wife
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  Speaker 4: said to him, Jake, you need specialist help, not for
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  Speaker 4: your cricket but for yourself, and he somehow found his
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  Speaker 4: way through it. Now, normally that's a crisis a guy
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  Speaker 4: will go through after his cricket career has finished, or
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  Speaker 4: normal the end, he hadn't even started it so to
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: go from that fragile mental state Christian to play Test
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  Speaker 4: cricket makes him one of Australia's best sports stories of
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  Speaker 4: the decade. It really does. He has climbed an incredible
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  Speaker 4: mountain and then you've got Brendan Doggett, just the third
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  Speaker 4: Indigenous male cricketer to play a Test for Australia. What
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  Speaker 4: a story he is. At age twenty one, he was
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  Speaker 4: a country carpenter into Woomba with no aspirations. He'd never
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  Speaker 4: played representative cricket. He never thought he ever would. He
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  Speaker 4: was working as a chippy Monday to Friday, playing club
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  Speaker 4: cricket on the weekends and his life was bliss. And
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  Speaker 4: then his brother went to Brisbane. He thought, oh my
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  Speaker 4: goad and enjoy him and play a few games down there,
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  Speaker 4: and he just went up through the system. Ten years
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  Speaker 4: later he's playing a Test match. It's a great story
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  Speaker 4: and it inspires every country cricketer who has a dream
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  Speaker 4: but never thinks they're going to make it. Well, Brendan
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  Speaker 4: Doggett is your man, because every dogget has his day.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Someone who wasn't named in the Australian Ashes squad is
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  Speaker 1: twenty year old Sam Constance. He put on an incredibly
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  Speaker 1: entertaining and fearless display against the incredibly dangerous Indian pace
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  Speaker 1: bowler Jasprett Bumra last summer.
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  Speaker 2: Ruck with big noise supporting him, running into Constance who's
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  Speaker 2: tried two ramps and two charges in his first twenty.
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  Speaker 3: One balls test level. Now we go for the ramp
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  Speaker 3: over the top of Russat.
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  Speaker 1: Pads, but he's been inconsistent in the domestic Sheffield Shield
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  Speaker 1: competition more recently. Do you think he will have an
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: ash's birth in future and do you think the criticism
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  Speaker 1: that's been leveled against him is fair?
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  Speaker 4: The criticism has not been bitter or a cerbic or
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  Speaker 4: anything like that. It's just been a statement of fact.
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  Speaker 4: You know, he's really struggled to know his game. He's
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  Speaker 4: a young boy of twenty and he's so far off
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  Speaker 4: knowing who he is and what he is that the
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  Speaker 4: best thing they can do with him is put him
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  Speaker 4: in the Sheffield Shield for a couple of years and
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  Speaker 4: let him find himself. He's a really nice lad. Everyone
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  Speaker 4: likes him. You talk to Mitchell Stark about him and
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  Speaker 4: he'll go on for minutes about how he's such a
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  Speaker 4: humble kid. He's open to any sort of suggestions and
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  Speaker 4: I think he'll get back there. But at the moment,
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  Speaker 4: Christen he doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know
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  Speaker 4: whether he's an attacker, he doesn't know his defensive game,
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  Speaker 4: so he needs to find himself. So a couple of
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  Speaker 4: years out of the spotlight will be just what Sam
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  Speaker 4: Constance needs.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Coming up, why England's feeling more confident than ever ahead
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of this ASHES series? Now, in fairness, we should probably
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: talk about the English team. You mentioned earlier that these
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  Speaker 1: are two of the most evenly matched teams we've seen
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  Speaker 1: in an ASHES series.
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  Speaker 3: In a long time.
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  Speaker 1: They retired English vice captain Stuart Broad said recently, this
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  Speaker 1: is the worst Australian team in fifteen years and the
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  Speaker 1: best English team. How do you rate England's prospects in
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  Speaker 1: this series?
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  Speaker 4: They were two pretty extreme observations, but it wasn't far out.
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  Speaker 4: This is the best England team in fifteen years and
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  Speaker 4: with the two injuries to Australia, this is one of
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  Speaker 4: their weaker teams in fifteen years. But there was something
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  Speaker 4: else he said about England. They're playing this baseball cricket.
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  Speaker 4: It's a really rampant attacking game. But their coach, Brenda McCullum,
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  Speaker 4: has had a policy of no winging in the dressing room.
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  Speaker 4: You do not complain about anything, and they've been mocked
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  Speaker 4: for it and people laughed at it because they said,
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  Speaker 4: our winging pomps, I'll find a way to complain, but
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  Speaker 4: they don't. Mark Wood twins his hamstring the other day
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  Speaker 4: went back to the dressing room and would not complain.
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  Speaker 4: And I really like that game plan, Kristin, because I've
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  Speaker 4: seen so many English teams come here over the last
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  Speaker 4: forty years and you can almost see Graham Gooch used
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  Speaker 4: to walk through customs with his shoulders down and say, oh,
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  Speaker 4: it's bloody hot here, isn't it already? And as soon
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  Speaker 4: as you start winging you it's like the All Black
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  Speaker 4: Shrubby union team when they toured England used to have
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  Speaker 4: a policy you weren't allowed to say it's a cold day,
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  Speaker 4: because as soon as you do, it gets colder. And
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  Speaker 4: I like this positivity. There are chance this year England
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  Speaker 4: they really are.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Robert Craddick is a senior sports journalist. You can follow
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: all the action from the first Ashes test at the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Australian dot Com dot Au