There was something about Monday’s Ashes finale at the Oval that felt almost as if it had been written. The coming and going of the rain, the glow of the floodlights against the dark sky, the shifts in momentum as first England, then Australia and then finally England again seized control of the narrative. Somewhere, somehow, someone was scripting this thing.
In Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad, two long-serving cricket warriors going into battle one last time and landing decisive blows to claim the victory, that writer had their ideal protagonists. Broad had made the attention-grabbing decision to announce his retirement mid-match, and for a while it seemed as though he might be punished for what looked like hubris. Until his final, triumphant overs he laboured through the Test: here was a bowler who had made the right decision to call it a day.
But the narrative was irresistible, the smell of English sentiment heady, and with Moeen and Chris Woakes having done the hard work, Broad got the old ball talking. He took the last two Australian wickets, headband in place, wheeling off across the south London grass to give his monumental career the perfect ending – a glorious English victory, even if the series was already out of reach. There was even some magic and mystery: having previously rearranged the bails to great effect, Broad repeated the act of superstition and once again luck followed, with his wicket-taking balls arriving not long after.
For Moeen, there was less conscious storytelling, even if this was his second stab at Test retirement. He had returned and he was simply doing his job: bowling well, offering a threat and always holding his end down. At the end of the game, he confirmed that this was indeed it.
Cricket, with its long days and endless summers, lends itself to sentiment, to the dying of the light and the leaving of the crease. Every time you are out, you die.
But every career – every life – has its arc. We make sense of our own existence by grafting narratives on to it. Sportspeople, politicians, musicians and other artists become our mythological heroes, their highs and lows cast in epic forms. Some of these modern heroes have a highly developed sense of their own status, a preoccupation with legacy, an obsession with brand. In announcing his retirement, Broad became narrator as well as protagonist. He pulled it off and secured that rare thing: a perfect career ending. His longtime England collaborator James Anderson, who now looks a shadow of his former self, may wish he had taken the same path.
More often than not, these endings do not go to plan. The former Liverpool footballer Jordan Henderson, like Broad a great English servant who squeezed every last drop out of his talent, has chosen to end his career as a pawn in a project funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Like many other late-career footballers – and some considerably younger – he is following the money into Mohammed bin Salman’s kingdom. David Beckham, another former England captain, spent the last minutes of his career on the pitch in tears, but even by that point he had spent years being more commercial product than footballer – CEO of Brand Beckham rather than the boy with the magic right foot. That last game of his was for the Qatari-owned PSG, and last year there he was, taking millions to promote the Qatar World Cup.
Even if we remove money and branding from the equation, the pull to return just once more is strong. After all, if you have spent your life doing one particular thing, especially at a very high level – if your life is defined by it – how do you just give it up? But as anyone familiar with heist films knows, the lure of one last job is dangerous. Michael Jordan may have immortalised his triumphant “last dance” with the Chicago Bulls in the form of a 10-part Netflix series, but his first retirement from basketball later involved a tragi-comic attempt to become a baseball player and his final retirement petered out in a Washington Wizards jersey, losing to the Philadelphia 76ers.
That same desire to turn back the clock can be seen every time Tony Blair appears in public, encouraged by a media with airtime to fill and its own version of a “grown up” to admire. Reaching always for influence and relevance, Blair also betrays a wish to return to the era before Iraq, when his Cheshire cat smile burned bright and things could only get better. In his last parliament speech as prime minister, he finished with these words: “I wish everyone, friend or foe, well, and that is that, the end.” Except of course it wasn’t the end.
For musical icons such as David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and – most awfully – David Berman, a brilliant final act was accomplished just before death. All three crafted albums of darkness and grandeur, testaments to the depth of their respective talents. Through their work right up to the end, they live on.
Broad and Moeen will also live on, their deeds now the stuff of legend. Back at home – back in Ithaca after their long voyages – they eventually may feel the pull of the sea once more. It would be best to resist that. Those of us at the Oval on Monday know there could be no finer ending.
Oscar Rickett is a journalist who regularly contributes to the Guardian, Vice, Middle East Eye and openDemocracy
