Just a couple of days ago I happened upon the following passage from Moby Dick (Penguin classics 1992 edition, p 183)

– The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and – Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller in one. That’s more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies, – Take some one of your own size; don’t pommel me! No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way! –

The prophecy is of a force rushing underground to acheive an inevitable end. Of course, as with all prohecy, it must be left up to the commentators, those great interpreters, to decide which parts of the prohecy apply to which segment of the current or impending situation – There is no doubt that Melville had a pretty clear idea of who was going to win this Ashes series, it’s just a matter of nutting out the correspondences. Who is dismembered and who will be the dismemberer. Who is lagging behind and still playing just cricket? Sailing, tunneling or riding patiently on to meet their epic fate.