Finn: Playing in Australia Means Whole Country is Against You

Former England fast bowler Steven Finn reflects on the unique, intense, and often chaotic pressure of touring Australia for the Ashes series.

sarah

Nov 18, 2025 - 22:57

Finn: Playing in Australia Means Whole Country is Against You

Despite all the challenges, difficulties, and hardships that come with playing international cricket in other parts of the world, nothing compares to the chaos and pressure that comes with traveling around the world to play an Ashes series.

I've experienced both sides of the sword: the triumph and joy of winning the 2010-11 series, sitting among the old wooden lockers of the Sydney Cricket Ground dressing room, smoking cigars, and celebrating with loud music blaring late into the night.

Three years later, at the end of the 2013-14 series, it was completely different, when you could hear a pin drop in that same dressing room.

After Mitchell Johnson and Australia had been with us for two months, everyone's eyes were fixed on the ground in despair.

Despite all the confrontations and battles on the field, the challenges of this tour begin even before you board the plane.

For months, sometimes years, eyes and minds await the next overseas Ashes series. A tour of Australia offers a group of England players the opportunity to achieve cricketing immortality, or to be shattered and dismantled. Those in the dressing room are no stranger to this.

Players can't look at their phones without seeing some form of Ashes preparation. In 2010, I was 21 years old and had no idea what I was getting into.

This Ashes was my first experience of cricket and my first tour of Australia. This naiveté served me well, as I went into this tour with such open eyes that it was impossible not to revel in the excitement of fulfilling a childhood dream so early in my career. Achieving this mindset is the first crucial step to making this tour a success.

I kept diaries during my Ashes tours, and in my diary the night before the first Test in 2010, I wrote that I couldn't sleep before the next day was expected to be the best day of my life, a mindset I've followed with varying success throughout my career.

How can a modern player protect themselves from the scrutiny that comes with this series?

This team will mostly go to the golf course, put their phones away, and spend four hours chasing a scratch handicap. Despite the bad press they receive for enjoying golf on tour, there's a solid rationale behind it.

On the 2013 tour, I didn't let myself escape. I practiced harder, pushing myself to the limit, believing that was the only way to regain my rhythm and form.

I returned from the tour with such a cluttered mind that I was considered unfit. Balance is essential. Australia is a wonderful country with so much to do off the cricket field. Embracing this and enjoying your time in Australia gives you a new perspective.

As soon as you get off the plane, you realize it's not just you competing against the Australian cricket team, but against most of the people in the country.

Customs officials don't smile and insist on checking your cricket spikes to make sure you're not bringing any unwanted dirt. You have to kneel down in the arrivals hall, open your cricket bag, and find your comfortable bowling spikes that you wore during the English summer. If there's even a trace of dirt on them, you have to clean them. Welcome to Australia.

I was once asked why I bought Terry's Chocolate Oranges, and whether they contained real fruit. I didn't realize they hadn't arrived in Australia yet.

After your shoes are cleaned and customs is cleared, you enter the arrivals hall where news crews greet you and ask if you'd enjoy watching Australia's thrashing for three months.

Smiling and having a bit of humor can soften people's perception of you.

Sometimes we would ignore the cameras by putting on headphones, which was a surefire way to be labeled "arrogant Poms."

Really, who wants to talk to anyone when you've just landed on a 24-hour flight?

Above all, our goal is to earn the respect of the Australian public, and that's achieved through our performance on the field.

In that first Test in 2010, we trailed by 211 runs in the first innings. 35,000 Australians in the massive concrete stadium were stomping their feet, baying for the English team's blood, marching toward another Australian victory.

Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss, and Jonathan Trott braved the din to score 517-1 in our second innings. The Test was drawn, but it felt like we had won.

You could feel the rhetoric shift towards us. Those who were so happy to tell us we would be completely destroyed were slowly starting to say how much they respected the way we fought back and how much they enjoyed watching the match.

Planning is important, but living in the present is just as important. Often, England teams tour Australia with a preconceived idea of the conditions they will face.