As another Ashes series dawns, the familiar, weighty descriptor returns: epic. It is a term bestowed upon the great Anglo-Australian contests—2005, 1981, the Bodyline series—and it fits. Yet this is no casual superlative. In its truest sense, the narrative arc of an Ashes battle shares a profound kinship with the ancient epics that have shaped storytelling itself.
The anticipation always crystallises around a single, pivotal moment: the first ball of the first Test. It is a delivery laden with portent, capable of defining a campaign. History offers a gallery of opening gambits: the authoritative slash to the boundary, the devastating inswinger shattering the stumps, or the wayward spray to slip. This instant, over in a heartbeat, can echo for two months, establishing a theme of triumph or despair much as the opening lines of Homer’s foundational poems set the stage for their sprawling sagas.
Consider the Iliad, a monumental work of ancient Greek verse that opens with a single, potent word: wrath. This rage fuels the entire saga of the warrior Achilles, his bitter withdrawal, and his cataclysmic return. The Ashes, too, has known such transformative fury. One need not look to a single ball, but to a series forged in perceived dishonour and spectacular retribution. The image of a once-mocked fast bowler, having stewed for years, returning to unleash a blistering, series-defining barrage of pace and hostility captures the very essence of Achillean wrath, steering his nation to total victory.
Then there is the Odyssey, Homer’s tale of a lone hero’s long, tortuous journey home. Its opening word—man—signals a story of singular focus, exploring the cunning and resilience required to overcome myriad obstacles. The Ashes pantheon has its own ‘man of many turns’: the strategic mastermind whose greatest weapon was a brilliant, devious intellect. This was the captain who could outthink the opposition, manipulating field placements and bowling changes to snatch victory, a triumph of cerebral artistry over brute force.
Yet, the ultimate embodiment of the Odyssean spirit—the tricky, ingenious, endlessly inventive protagonist—may be the bowler whose very delivery was a narrative in itself. Each ball was a plot twist, a feint, a mystery spun with wicked guile. He was the game’s great illusionist, and his career was a decade-long odyssey of confounding batsmen with sheer wizardry.
A famed director may be preparing a lavish cinematic interpretation of these ancient tales, but cricket requires no such adaptation. The stage is set. When the first ball is sent down in Perth, it will not just begin a sporting contest; it will initiate the latest chapter in a living, breathing epic. It is a saga of rage, cunning, resilience, and glory, played out not on the page, but on the turf. The next great hero awaits his moment.