Steve Harmison delivering the ball to Andrew Flintoff at second slip in 2006. Mitchell Starc crashing into Rory Burns’ leg stump in 2021. Zak Crawley crunching Australian skipper Pat Cummins through the covers for four in 2023.
The first ball of an Ashes series brings to an end all the outside noise, the months of anticipation, the verbal back and forth between former players and the controversial newspaper front pages.
Even if just for a few seconds, the talking stops and fans on both sides are united by a shared fear and excitement of what the first ball may bring.
So, how important really is the first ball of an Ashes series?
Despite only lasting a few seconds, it is built up by the media and fans alike to be of upmost importance and often as having a significant psychological impact on both sets of players.
First Ball importance can be over stated says Sports Psychologist Dr Steve Bull
I spoke to renowned high-performance consultant Steve Bull, who worked with the England team for 16 years and famously during their successful 2005 Ashes campaign, to see what he thought about the build up to and psychological impact of the first ball of an Ashes series.
Each of the last two Ashes series have been synonymous with their iconic first balls, with Australians still fondly remembering their side charging around in delight after the aforementioned removal of Burns and England fans often waxing lyrical about Crawley’s cover drive that even made captain Ben Stokes’ jaw drop.
Steve Bull though believes that the importance of the first ball of an Ashes series is often overstated.
“The first ball is very important, but it’s probably not as important as people would like to big it up to be,” he said.
Bull referenced the fact that each Ashes series has the potential for 25 days of hard-fought cricket across the series, with approximately six hours of action a day.
“The idea that one ball is going to be so massively instrumental in determining the outcome of a series, to me, is pretty far-fetched,” he continued.
Previous evidence does show that sides have been able to overcome suffering the earliest of blows in an Ashes series, with Australia going on to win the first Test and retain the urn, despite Crawley’s imperious start.
Bad for Rory Burns but it didn’t have to be the end
Meanwhile, England’s most recent demise down under may have been sparked by the undoing of Burns, but they had ample opportunity to turn the series around and halt their own slump.
Bull does still acknowledge the importance of “getting on the front foot and exerting some psychological pressure early on” though.
Ashes tours have long been touted as being extremely demanding both mentally and physically for both sets of players.
The media scrutiny is of a level unrivalled by any other series and even the early stages of World Cups, with cricket often being afforded rare space on both the front and back pages.
Speaking to BBC Sport, Stuart Broad explained his belief that his decision not to walk during the 2013 Ashes was blown out of proportion, due to the additional publicity that cricket was receiving with general sportswriters sent to cover the series amidst the Premier League’s off-season.
For Bull, “being mentally prepared, being resilient, working on your mental toughness is a crucial part of preparation.”
“You cannot underestimate the influence of that.”
Mental Preparation Counts says Dr Bull
Bull also explains that being well prepared mentally can sometimes be the difference between success and failure within sport.
“The world of sport is full of individuals and teams, who have been technically very gifted and maybe physically well-prepared, but it’s the mental side that lets them down,” he said.
“That’s why most teams and sports individuals have got access to sports psychology services, because that’s what it’s about.”
With the upcoming Ashes series also being in Australia, this brings another level of pressure for the England players in particular.
Although Australia will be under pressure from an expectant home crowd, England face the prospect of entering into a partisan environment and facing a couple of months of abuse in a place where they will be regularly reminded that they have not won a Test for 15 years.
They will also be up against the Australian media, with photographs of them arriving in airports bleary eyed or trying to relax on the golf course being splashed across the front pages of the newspapers.
Captain Stokes and talisman Joe Root can expect a particularly difficult time, with Australians still smarting from prior Stokes heroics and constantly relishing in Root’s failure to score a Test century in Australia to date.
“This is particularly the case when playing in Australia, the build up for that first game is immense,” said Bull.
“If you speak to any English cricketer, who has taken part in a series in Australia, they will talk about the pressure that the environment creates.”
England may be boosted though by the fact that the first Test is not taking place at The Gabba in Brisbane for the first time in 40 years.
“You don’t need to have to do too much research to find all the anecdotes that the English players have given about what it’s like fielding on the boundary in that cauldron. It is tough,” notes Bull.
However, Perth’s Optus Stadium will still not be an easy place to go and can fit in around 20,000 more fans “baying for blood and desperate for the English to fail”.
“I’m not quite sure there’s anything quite like being English in Australia, performing in front of an Ashes crowd at one of those huge grounds,” said Bull.
The time for talking is almost over and the distant memories of previous Ashes utopias or nightmares will continue to fade.
Although Harmison to Flintoff, Starc to Burns and Cummins to Crawley may be superseded by another iconic opening Ashes moment, Bull does not believe that this will decide the urn’s ultimate destination.
“You can’t honestly say that one ball is going to determine the outcome of a 25 day series,” he said.
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