Ashes crowds show how times have changed

“Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!” Ben Hilfenhaus’ final nick behind was ten minutes in the past and the MCG was emptying rapidly. One spectator, wandering down the ramp towards the exit, let loose that most archetypal, uninventive Australian chant, a gesture of defiance to make up for his team’s submission. On the best days, the cry is met with instant, triumphant response. Here, seconds passed and the words subsided before another fan took up the cause and returned an equally solitary “Oi! Oi! Oi!” And his hopeful words too subsided, but not into silence, for there was no silence within a mile of the hallowed turf.

That was ensured by the Barmy Army, whose chants were not gestures of defiance but raucous expressions of triumph, the kind the Australian chant once signified. The baton has been passed, not only on the field but in the stands. It is unlikely to change any time soon. England’s crop of players hardly know what it is to lose to Australia: none have lost the Ashes more than once, five never at all. When they have lost – Headingley in 2009, Perth this year – it has been because England played atrociously and Australia lifted their game.

There is only one dominant team, and it can be seen in the way they carry themselves. Graeme Swann, even when he has been mandated to bowl flat and fast and hold up an end, always walks with a strut and a glimmer in his eye; it is coming. Tim Bresnan, regarded by most Australians as little more than an honest toiler, turns at his mark not in fear of being crashed to the cover boundary, as did Sajid Mahmood, James Anderson and even Matthew Hoggard last tour, but eagerly anticipating the next step in his plan. Chris Tremlett, delivering a series of gems and beating the edge with regularity that can easily frustrate a bowler, smiles and in spite of his professed gentleness enjoys, or at least appreciates, the torment he is giving. Matt Prior thinks everything is out. These are signs of a team used to beating Australia and not looking to the heavens for thanks.

Meanwhile, Mitchell Johnson seems to hope for a wicket rather than expecting one, and not without reason. Steven Smith bowled a good ball during the final session of day two in Melbourne, pitching on middle and leg, turning and bouncing and drawing a cautious defensive prod. What was needed was another twenty such deliveries to induce a mistake; what came was a half-tracker, pummeled to the midwicket boundary. But this crunching boundary, unlike the forward-defensive, went in the air – comfortably wide of the fieldsman, but enough to encourage Smith to bowl similarly next delivery, with similar results. Hilfenhaus avoids this impetuousness but his patience is more resigned than plotting, having accepted that he is likely to bend at least ninety deliveries a day away from the right-hander to be comfortably left, no damage done.

Enough has been written about the failings of the Australian team and the strengths of the English one. In Perth in 2006, when Geraint Jones emerged on a pair, the Barmy Army – never deniers of reality – sang out Living on a Prayer. Late on day three in Melbourne, the scoreboard showing that six Australian wickets had already tumbled, the same song rang from the Army’s ranks, this time as an offering to their vanquished opponents. After so many years of pain, they are enjoying it. And Australia seems to have been almost as successful at forgetting its own greatness as England has been at forgetting the lows they sank too.

Two local members of the crowd, discussing the parlous state of the batting order, offered this: “Apart from Hussey, and maybe Watson, there’s nobody else in that line-up who can score runs.” “Exactly. Although somebody the other day was talking about Ponting, I think?” Walking down from the MCG in a throng of Australian fans, there is no more talk of the cricket, past or present. A boy attempts soccer tricks with a plastic bottle on the footpath. As they approach the train station, a young man asks his friends, “Where to next?” He is not discussing the cricket, but he could be. Where to, indeed. And in a moment of silence, from inside the ground the Barmy Army can still be heard.