It seems to be happening a lot.

Well, it's an unsettled batting order, and it has been for some time.

They rarely go out with the same two fellas opening, although that seems to be an area that the captain, certainly in particular, if not the selectors, have decided can be flexible.

And when Travis Head comes off, okay, it kicks a goal for the Australian team.

But around all that, I'm shaking my head.

I mean, I love Nick Maddison.

He plays cricket at the Eastern Suburbs in Sydney.

Even game by game and innings by innings, if the batting order's changed, how can there be any symmetry between two players to actually give them the best chance of establishing partnerships?

That's sort of a remarkable movie-like moment of heroism, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Whoever this individual is, he had some sort of training.

And I can tell you, I've been involved in schools training police officers on how to respond to these things.

And they're taught from day one in the class that when you arrive on scene, you have to find the threat and address it right away.

You can't stop and talk about it.

You have to get in there and do it.

What are we looking to learn about the shooter who's now dead?

I think he's more effective down the order, isn't he? But you haven't been able to replace Osman Khawaja and David Warner at the top of the order, and that's always been where Australia's been strong, hasn't it?

Well, most good sides have a good opening pair.

And we're fiddling Warner's absence perhaps more acutely than anyone else's at this point.

But the replacement's not obvious.

I mean, Renshaw's getting a crack now.

Weatherall had a go.

Who knows where we're going to be after South Africa? So the ball's certainly in the air with one, two and three.

Is that real or just imagined by people on the outside?

[laughs]

Uh, but yeah.

No, and, uh, uh, yeah, no, I, I, I like the film a lot, but that, that opening theme, I was kind of like, "Something seems a little off," and it's the, there's a moment in the opening theme where the timing of the, the, um, the drum track, the e- electronic drum track seems a little bit off, and [laughs] immediately my mind went, "Oh yeah, John Carpenter wrote this music." [laughs]

Bye-bye.

See ya.

[outro music]

But what does it mean to you, Jim, when you hear the word Ashes cricket? What does it mean to you, and why is this series that's been going on for nearly 150 years, um, been so highly regarded still as the number one rivalry and series that people wanna watch in cricket?

It's hard to beat history.

I mean, the history and tradition goes back to 1877, and there have, have been some memorable contests.

Uh, th- there's, there's been a lot, and there's a lot of em- emotion tied up with a whole lot of it, with the, the mother country playing against the colonies originally.

And, um, and this has been reinforced over a period of time, uh, by the media to a large, large extent in building it up as the principal, um, sporting event between, um, Great Britain or England and, and Australia.

Uh, and it's been, you know, powerfully sustained over a long period of time with some really dramatic series.

So, uh, as, as long as that happens, and as long as there's, there's a bit of coming and going, uh, in terms of who's, who's doing well, uh, you'd have to say at the moment in Australia, uh, England is struggling, or have been, uh, to compete successfully.

So what are your thoughts on this series, Jim? Were you, you know, not, not to be expected that Australia won the way they did, or do you think England could have played a lot better than they shown, but, um, that didn't turn out to be the case?