An English Forecast

GH on the challenge facing the visitors

The English reputedly love talking about weather as a conversational preliminary, so let’s. Perth is forecast to be delightful these next few days - 28 degrees on Friday, cooling to the mid-20s over the next week.

Overhead conditions

Nor is this mere tactful embroidery. Summer in Perth can be pitilessly hot. Test matches are usually staged beneath cloudless azure skies in dazzling light. When England were here in 2017, chairs were brought out to support the batters during drinks breaks, with umbrellas to shelter them.

This time, while the tabloid press might be hostile, the weather is welcoming: Perth’s mildest winter in decades has left its parks and gardens lush and verdant. An omen, perhaps, if you believe in them: it was an unseasonally mild summer in 2010-11 when England last enjoyed Ashes success, allowing bowlers to bowl long spells, and Alastair Cook to bat on to the crack of doom.