So this is Christmas. And what have we done? The Ashes is over. With two Tests still to come
When the moment finally came the visuals were perfect: clean lines, neat angles, figures picked out in crisp afternoon sun against the almost satirical splendour of Adelaide Oval.
Scott Boland took the final wicket to seal Australia’s unassailable 3-0 Ashes series lead, the 74th time this moment has been played out down the centuries, and immediately the white shapes converged to form a bobbing huddle. England’s batters stood in an attitude of formal deflation. The umpires began their priestly last-things walk, framed against that huge, empty, lime-green field.
Before long the players dispersed into handshakes and stump-distribution, a final divvying-up before this private space is transformed into a public stage, invaded already by a cavalry of TV plinths, dignitaries, microphone wanglers, transports and trucks.
And finally, drawing up the rear, a lone man in shorts with a broom. Because this is cricket and there is always a man with a broom waiting for everyone to go away. Here he comes again, the reaper with his scythe, a reminder, perhaps, that there is a man with a broom who waits for us all. As there is now surely for senior parts of the current England regime.
