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Just beyond the boundary’s edge, a cockatoo flew into the hole in a eucalyptus tree where it is nesting. Beyond that, the Swan River flowed. Galahs, chests as pink as those any number of Englishmen will be sporting in a couple of weeks’ time, snuffled on the grass. Other birds flitted around the park, even those with less eye-catching plumage sporting eye-catching names: black-faced cuckooshrikes; willie-wagtails. Um, ducks.
Given that they visited Wellington’s Basin Reserve, Christchurch’s Hagley Oval and the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui at various stages during their white-ball tour of New Zealand, it is tempting to conclude that England have arranged their various stopping points of the winter on aesthetic rather than sporting grounds. Even in this company, though, Lilac Hill stands tall.
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The park, where England will play the Lions on Thursday in their only Ashes warm-up, sits at the northern edge of picturesque Guildford, perhaps the prettiest of all Guildfords, founded in 1829 on a small smear of land between the Swan and Helena rivers and named less in tribute to the Surrey original than to its former MP, James Mangles, who happened to be the father-in-law of the person doing the naming. You could say it looks good enough to eat, which is what the sprawling city of Perth appears to be doing to it.
The first members of England’s Test squad arrived in Western Australia more than a week ago but it was not until Sunday evening that the last of them turned up. Multi-format players had been given a week off between tours, which many of them spent on a golfing tour of New Zealand, starting near the bottom of the South Island and working their way gradually north before finally ending up at Auckland airport. Monday, then, was the first opportunity for all 16 England players to train together, the morning when the Ashes starting pistol truly fired. On your marks, get set, go … somewhere else.
Only five players turned up, heavily outnumbered by coaches and support staff. It was, to be fair, an optional session. Jofra Archer bowled off a full run-up, his first appearance at the ground even though he was one of the first players to arrive in the city and training sessions have been running all week. Joe Root, one of the late arrivals from New Zealand, and Jamie Smith, who also landed on Sunday after a family holiday in Dubai, did an extended session in the nets, facing mainly spin bowling. Shoaib Bashir provided some of it, along with a few local players (at the end of the session one of them said he had been underwhelmed by the experience, observing that “they’re not even that good”).
They were watched by occasional passing dog-walkers and a scant handful of vaguely interested locals. One of them, Jack Binn, sat under a tree, drinking a can of Coke, after pausing his bike ride at the sight of some unusual action. “I wouldn’t have thought England would be in a place like this,” he said. “I wouldn’t have a clue who’s in their team, I don’t even follow cricket. It’s just a good ride, coming out this way. I’m all about football, me. Never played the game either. I actually think it’s a boring sport, to be honest with you.”
For all his lack of expertise, Binn seemed encouraged by what he saw. “I can’t stand the stuck-up Aussie bastards,” he said. “I can’t stand their captain either. I hate people who are full of themselves. And they’re old – these guys look young and vibrant.”
A couple of others stood a few yards away. One of them, Paul Gallizzi, is at least a cricket fan, and will be working one of the bars at the Optus Stadium during the first Test, but he came to get Ben Stokes’ autograph and left when informed his target had stayed away. The other, Lachlan Croot, had not known the team was here and was innocently driving past when he spied them and stopped. “I thought I’m probably not going to get another chance to do this,” he said. “I’ve seen all the Ashes talk. It’ll be interesting to see who walks the walk.”
There is little excuse for anyone in the area not knowing that England are in town. After all, having last week described Stokes as “England’s cocky captain complainer”, on Monday the West Australian again devoted the majority of its front page to a picture of an English cricketer wheeling their luggage through Perth airport.
Over an image of Root pushing some garishly floral bags through the arrivals hall their headline reimagined the world’s top-ranked Test batter as “average Joe”. “Dud Root down under: hero in the homeland, pretender in Australia,” they wrote, encouraging readers to turn to page nine for “the stats that haunt England’s greatest batter”. In the pre-series phoney war much is being made of Root’s disappointing record in Australia, but as a scant assortment of onlookers and dog-walkers can now attest, he seems to be working hard to improve it.
