The Ultimate Test: The Story of the 2009 Ashes Series [Hardcover]

Its no surprise that Gideon Haigh has written such a wonderful account of a strangely compelling series - in fact, the major joy in this book is to find so much Haigh in it. Tracking down all his articles even with a decent Internet search is all but impossible, so finding them all together in this collection is indispensible. He starts from the agonies of winter 2008-9 for the Aussies, with wonderful vignettes on Symonds ('looking at his bat as if he wished it would turn into a fishing rod' and Hayden (the E.J.Thribb tribute), on Pietersen and his battles with authority and team-building, on the great Shane. Looking back on Australia's patchy form coming into the Ashes, it becomes clearer why they felt the 'mental disintegration' in summer 2009 - and that Adam Gilchrist identified the same lack of team 'mateship' in 2005. What is more impressive is England's failure to disintegrate first, and his analysis of Strauss, of Swann and of other vital characters holding England together is compelling. A wonderful read, warming you through the long winter evenings - treat yourself and pretend to buy it for someone's else, sneakily reading it yourself first!

It's a good idea. Take cricket's oldest and fiercest (Pakistan-India not withstanding) rivalry. Two sides lock horns over twenty-five days of unremitting drama, with the balance-of-power fluctuating day-by-day, session-by-session, occasionally over-by-over. Take one man's daily press reports from the whole series and, with undue haste, have it on the bookshelves within days of the little urn being held aloft.

It worked in 2005, so it should again. And it does so, not simply because this series matched the previous encounter (the 2006-07 debacle Down Under has been erased by England's Ministry of Truth) for drama, though not for the quality of cricket or big name protagonists, but because Gideon Haigh is such a good writer; shrewd, witty and readable.

I'm not the only one who thinks so. Whereas his 2005 account was a straight rerun of his Guardian pieces, this book collects his thoughts from the Business Spectator (Melbourne), The Times (London), The National (Abu Dhabi), a blog and diary from The Wisden Cricketer, plus some features for Ladbroke's and columns for The Australian and Sunday Age.

He traces the story back to the last day of 2008 as Australia lose their second test series in a month, the home defeat by South Africa following a trouncing in India. We get 49 pages of background and musings prior to a ball being bowled on Day One at Cardiff and a further 16 as epilogue six short weeks later.

The success of the format is not just that one gets an immediate post-play account, but is privy to the pre-play thoughts without hindsight revision (how many ex-pro's employ the Ministry of Truth in ghost-written biogs?). It makes subtle and refreshing copy for the reader. Thus, one sees his advocacy of Ramprakash as a straight replacement for Pietersen for the Third Test, but his rejection of the idea on the eve of the Final Test, giving good reasoning on both occasions. He applauds the selection of Trott, and wishes him luck, but is fearful of the Oval's legacy as a debutants graveyard. Time will tell if the lad Trott makes it as a Test batsman (Insert appropriate smiley).

He has a good eye for the trivial stat or anomaly that all true cricket lovers adore, such that India's Virender Sehwag (no Derek Underwood he) is the only spinner to have twice hit Ricky Ponting's stumps in tests (as illustration that Swann's doing so at Edgbaston was no mean achievement) or that England's batting backbone, numbers three to five, faced just sixty balls in the Headingley shambles, and were dismissed by six of them.

He muses on serious matters, such as the very future of Test Cricket, in competition with the "resistless tide of Twenty20", and notes that by the series finale, with the Ashes poised on a knife-edge, the sports pages lead with Arsenal v Celtic, the Harlequins rugger fiasco, and "soccer, incongruously, played all day (on televisions) in the (Oval) press box".

He is also waspishly funny when describing Aussie keeper Brad Haddin as "ham handed",
or musing that those in corporate hospitality at Cardiff must be dining on "braised unicorn and ambrosia" ~ the only possible explanation for empty seats whilst Flintoff is bowling at 93mph to Phillip Hughes.

The success or readability of this book can only be judged with time. Cricket fans (I'm sure I'm not the only one) still take Mike Brearley's account of the 1981 series off the dusty bookshelves in the football season (i.e. between late July and mid June) not because of his perceptive insight and way with words, but because of the dramas that happened on the field.

The publisher's haste in getting this book on the shelves is betrayed by nine blank pages (how many trees?) before the back endpaper. This would have been ten blanks but for an imperial-to-metric length and distance conversion chart. I cannot fathom what this possibly has to do with this book (SuperFred's run out of Ponting is described as an undefined "distance") other than it has been superimposed on the template of last year's Schott's Miscellany or perhaps the Highway Code (I don't suppose for a minute they print such things in maths text books anymore).

Cricket attracts `characters' and eccentrics, think Rags Randall, Merv Hughes, Freds Trueman and Flintoff, Warney, Beefy, Lamby, Vivvy, Johnners, Blowers and the Jimmy Saville look-alike who is picked out in the crowd by TV cameramen wherever England play. Gideon Haigh joins them as a proud Australian, who has lived there almost all of his life, yet, when it comes to cricket, supports England, in honour of his being born here one day 40-odd years ago.

Another welcome addition to my cricket library from Gideon Haigh. Keep them coming, sir. (This is a slightly adapted review - I originally wrote it in Sept 2009)

Like his previous Ashes books this is well written, informative and entertaining. What makes this a really vivid read compared to its competitors is that it is made up from Haigh's newspaper and online writing during the series with minimal post hoc editing.

Given the 2009 Ashes was a roller-coaster of ineptitude compared to the 2003 version, with one side then the other taking turns to self-destruct, the fact the vast majority of the book isn't written with the benefit of hindsight means that there's never an implied sense that England's ultimate triumph was in some way inevitable. This means the ebb and flow of the series really comes alive.

Highly recommended.