'Stick to Your Guns' – Stewart Backs England and Inspires a New Kind of Cricket Adventure
When former England captain Alec Stewart told the BBC that he understood England’s decision to “stick to their guns” over the Ashes tour game in Canberra, he was talking tactics, pride, and pressure at the highest level of cricket. But for travelers, that same phrase – *stick to your guns* – is quietly reshaping how fans experience the sport on the road.
Right now, with England’s Ashes build‑up under the microscope and tour fixtures in Australia grabbing headlines, more people than ever are looking at cricket not just as something to watch on TV, but as a reason to cross oceans. Stadiums become starting points, not final destinations. A day at the ground turns into a week of coastlines, outback, and impromptu backyard games with strangers who feel like old friends.
Inspired by England’s current tour discussions and Stewart’s backing for a firm stance, here are five Ashes‑era adventures that blend live cricket, big landscapes, and a bit of that “stick to your guns” spirit.
1. Canberra Calling: From Tour Match to Bush Capital Trails
England’s choice to hold firm on their Ashes preparations and Stewart’s support for their approach shines a rare spotlight on Canberra, often overshadowed by Sydney and Melbourne. If you follow the trail of that tour game to Australia’s capital, you’ll find an under‑the‑radar adventure hub hiding behind the headlines. Spend a morning watching England’s warm‑up game, feeling the nerves and the fine‑tuning of a team trying to get every session right, then head straight out into the hills that ring the city.
The bush capital is encircled by trails that feel a world away from the controlled geometry of a cricket pitch. Hike through Namadgi National Park, where granite outcrops rise above the eucalyptus forest and kangaroos graze close enough to hear the crunch of dry grass. In the evening, wander around Lake Burley Griffin with the glow of the grandstands still in your mind, and think about how different the game feels after you’ve watched it live. Canberra’s quiet streets at night, lined with modern bars and small restaurants, make it easy to exchange scorecard analysis with locals who have strong opinions on England’s tactics. The result is an adventure that fuses the intensity of a tour game with the serenity of Australia’s high country, reminding you that even a “simple” warm‑up fixture can be the spine of a full‑blown trip.
2. Sydney’s Harbour to Hill Nets: Following the Ashes Southbound
With England and Australia forever intertwined through the Ashes, Sydney remains one of the great pilgrimage points for cricket fans—and a natural launchpad for adventure. Fly in on the same week as an Ashes Test and you’ll feel it at the airport: fans in replica shirts, quiet debates over team selection, newspaper back pages plastered with quotes from Alec Stewart and other ex‑captains dissecting every call. From there, your adventure can follow the narrative arc of the series.
Start with the classic: a day at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where the steep stands trap the noise and every wicket feels bigger than it should. Once stumps are called, leave the SCG floodlights behind and walk straight into a different kind of arena: the harbour. Take a sunset ferry from Circular Quay, watching the opera house slip past as you replay dropped catches and masterstrokes in your head. The next day, head for the Blue Mountains on an early train out of Central. There, sandstone cliffs, deep valleys, and waist‑high mist offer the ultimate contrast to the manicured precision of Test cricket. Trail runs, canyoning trips, or quiet lookouts like Govetts Leap let you reset between match days. You return to Sydney with dust on your shoes, lungs full of eucalyptus air, and a sharper appreciation for the players who front up day after day under a fierce Australian sun.
3. Backyard Ashes on the Beach: Making Your Own Test Match
While national boards argue over tour schedules and pre‑series games, travelers are creating their own versions of the Ashes on beaches and in hostel courtyards across Australia and England. Inspired by the current debates—should teams schedule more practice games, is “sticking to your guns” the right call?—you can design a trip where you play as much as you watch. All you need is a plastic bat, a taped tennis ball, and a stretch of sand or grass.
Imagine Byron Bay or Bondi on a rest day between Tests. You mark out a rough pitch with flip‑flops for stumps, and suddenly strangers with accents from Birmingham, Delhi, Auckland, and Perth are sledging like seasoned pros. Everyone brings their own version of the game: one‑hand‑one‑bounce rules, automatic sixes for hitting the surf, “retire at 20” to keep the line moving. The match builds its own tension, its own tiny narrative arcs—dropped catches, controversial run‑outs, a traveler who claims to “never play” then smashes the ball halfway to the promenade. By sunset, you’ve recreated the spirit of the Ashes on a human scale: competitive, playful, full of strong opinions and stronger laughs. It’s an adventure that costs almost nothing but gives you the same adrenaline spike the pros feel, only with sand between your toes instead of a stadium scoreboard.
4. The Long Train to Cricket and Red Desert Skies
Current coverage of the Ashes build‑up focuses on flights, fixtures, and training schedules, but if you’re not bound by broadcast windows, you can take the slow way: the long Australian rails that turn a cricket tour into a moving expedition. With England’s plans dissected daily on sports bulletins, there’s a certain satisfaction in doing the exact opposite—trading speed for space and time.
Board a train from Sydney or Melbourne heading inland, a few days before or after a Test match. As you roll away from the coast, phone signal fades and the landscape widens. Fellow passengers follow the same news you do—discussing whether England should have adjusted their Canberra preparations, arguing over bowling combinations—but the debate happens against a backdrop of endless paddocks and ochre earth. At small stops, you can hop off for an hour, wander dusty streets, find a local pub where the TV small‑talk revolves around who’s opening the batting. By the time you reach somewhere like Broken Hill or farther into South Australia, you’ve turned a single match ticket into the spine of a journey through Australia’s interior. Nights on the train, watching stars through the window and faintly hearing someone’s radio commentary from down the carriage, feel like a reminder that sport is both tiny—a set of numbers on a scorecard—and massive, a reason to cross an entire continent.
5. Reverse Ashes: Chasing Cricket Back to England’s Village Greens
With Australian grounds in the spotlight and England’s tour plans argued over in real time, it’s easy to forget that the origin story of all this drama is still unfolding on soft, damp English village greens. A true Ashes adventure doesn’t have to end at the final Test in Australia; it can loop back to the quieter fields that produced players and pundits like Alec Stewart in the first place.
Plan your trip so you catch the English summer season just as the analysis of the Australia tour is winding down. Land in London with suitcases that smell faintly of sunscreen and red dust, then head for the countryside—Surrey, Yorkshire, the Cotswolds, wherever the fixtures list takes you. Borrow a car or take slow local trains and watch as megastadium debates about “sticking to your guns” over tactics shrink into friendly arguments about homemade teas and who’s captaining the second XI this year. You sit on wooden benches, sip tea from paper cups, and watch as someone in a slightly too‑big sweater takes a diving catch that earns louder applause than any televised slip grab. On some grounds, you’ll see kids recreating Ashes moments in their own imaginations, running in like their heroes, bat raised as if the boundary rope were a rope of light. By tracing the Ashes story back to these small fields, you complete an adventure that isn’t just about chasing big events, but about understanding how they grow from simple, local love for the game.
Conclusion
As England debates every decision on their current Ashes journey—warm‑up games in Canberra, selection gambles, and the wisdom of “sticking to their guns”—travelers have a unique chance to weave those same storylines into their own adventures. The news cycle might focus on press conferences, disciplinary calls, and match stats, but beyond the headlines lie trains cutting through the outback, city trails circling quiet lakes, beachside Test matches improvised with plastic bats, and village greens that hum softly with history.
Follow the series if you want, or just borrow its energy: that mix of rivalry, resilience, and belief that what happens over a few days in the middle really matters. Turn it into your own itinerary, where every match is an excuse to see somewhere new, and every journey between grounds becomes its own chapter. In the end, the best cricket adventure isn’t just about who lifts the urn—it’s about the routes you trace across two countries bound together by a game, a rivalry, and the simple, stubborn joy of sticking to your guns and going anyway.