Let the Ashes mind games begin: gazing through a crystal ball at cricket in 2025 | Cricket

January
In the final match between Australia and India at the SCG, the Aussies' final home Test before they take on England in Perth in November, every member of Pat Cummins is found complicit in what is being interpreted within the England camp as a significant escalation in the ghost of Ash. games. Hackles are raised after the Australians, through seven full days of training and play, barely mention the Ashes, and at no point seem perpetually obsessed with the still-distant series. You can see that we are really in their heads, a source tells the Mirror. Ten months to go, and we've literally scared them to death.

February
After his electrifying form in 2024, when he scored six centuries, five fifties and averaged 55.57 across 31 Test innings, Joe Root sets a milestone in his first international appearance of the year, and his first white- ball performance for his country since 2023. A swashbuckling 41 against India in the first one-day international in Nagpur only ends when he hits his own wicket attempting a bizarre novel that is soon nicknamed. the quadriginoctuple frap disaster due to its distinctly hypercaffeinated nature. He's already the second-highest hitter in the side, beams Jos Buttler, and if he starts hitting shots like that, it's only a matter of time before he overtakes Netherlands Max ODowd and the involuntarily retired Jonny Bairstow and enters the top 50 of the invades the world. .

March
Australia lose in the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy, their preparations hampered by uncertainty over whether India would qualify, and therefore whether they should play the match in Abu Dhabi or Karachi. The situation drags on for so long that the Australians end up boarding a chartered plane that flies through the airspace between the two Asian cities for 11 hours as they wait for the ICC to finally announce the BCCI's decision. “I'm seething,” says the coach, Andrew McDonald, when they finally land. My players are tired and disoriented, and we were on the plane so long that their last three meals consisted entirely of snack packs of pretzels. On the plus side, the boys with window seats learned a lot about the coastal features of the Gulf of Oman.

April
Injury-prone speed merchant Jofra Archer turns 30 on the first day of the month and is presented with a bizarrely large celebratory cake by his Indian Premier League side, Rajasthan Royals. The hapless bowler has been ruled out for the rest of the month after scorching his lips in what the Royals' media department is calling a candle-related incident.

Be able to
Mitchell Starc's stunning form with the ball and Jake Fraser-McGurk's explosive batting unexpectedly sees their IPL team, Delhi Capitals, go all the way to the final of the tournament. England's decision not to recall players from the annual franchise-based spectacle therefore means Australian DC teammate Harry Brook is stuck playing short-form cricket in India while Ben Stokes assembles his side to get their red-ball summer underway against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge. . You can see that we are really in their heads, an English source tells the Mail. Six months to go and they have literally started kidnapping our best players.

June
Australia's search for a reliable opening partnership reaches new depths of desperation as they, including a concussion substitute, somehow try seven different players at the top of the rankings during a three-Test series against the West Indies, ranging in age (and, in an unusual coincidence, partnership totals) from 19 to 38. In addition, there is good news as reports that Travis Head had an AS nightmare did not involve any serious injury, but that there was a seriously charred mahi-mahi at Barbados barbecue hotspot Oistins Fish Fry.

July
Archer makes an emotional return to Test cricket against India, a full 1,592 days or four years, four months and 1.57 weeks after his previous appearance, in February 2021, although his bowling is severely hampered by the unusual, bulky and ill-fitting cricket blanks he carries throughout the match. Yes, that was unfortunate, Brendon McCullum admits, but after consulting with our medical team we decided it was best to literally wrap him in cotton wool.

August
Australia hosts South Africa for three ODIs and three Twenty20s, all to be played in the north of the country where the weather is most reliable in late winter. Together the two series double the total number of August outdoor internationals Australia has ever hosted (three ODIs were also played under the retractable roof of what is now known as Melbourne's Marvel Stadium, also against South Africa, in 2000) . You can see that we are really in their heads, an English source tells the Express. Three months to go and now they're stealing our cricket months.

September
Fresh from their six matches in Northern Australia, South Africa land in England to play six more, with ODIs in Leeds, Lords and Southampton, followed by T20s in Cardiff, Manchester and Nottingham. Aiden Markram's impressive side ultimately win seven and lose only two of their twelve matches over the two months and even in the hemispheres. A hastily convened joint meeting of the England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket Australia votes overwhelmingly to reject their claim that this means they have in fact won the Ashes.

October
Preparations for Ash are entering their final stages as Perth's Optus Stadium, site of the opening test, takes delivery of a truckload of industrial fans and patio heaters. We saw what Pakistan did to England late last year when they used this method to prepare their pitches, and we want a bit of that, says Isaac McDonald, whose job title at Western Australia Cricket has changed from head curator to chef .

November
England's white-ball tour of New Zealand ends a week before the red-ball side arrives in Perth, leaving their multi-format players without enough time to get home between trips and forcing them to move on to something else to fill the gap in their team. schedule. In unrelated news, hundreds gather in angry protest outside Golf New Zealand's headquarters in Auckland. I don't know what's going on, one rages, there's no starting time anywhere in the country. The crisis, which remains unexplained, mysteriously subsides by mid-month. Meanwhile, in Perth, a certain test series starts on the 21st.