The show taking viewers behind the scenes of the infamous Ashes stumping

The subtitle for The Test heralds “a new era for Australia’s Test team”. Part one of the three-season series begins in March 2018, with news breaking during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town that opening batsman Cameron Bancroft had been caught on camera sandpapering one side of the ball to help the fast bowlers’ swing. Also known as cheating. Things had to change, and they did. Coach Darren Lehmann stood down and was replaced by Justin Langer, captain Steve Smith was replaced by Tim Paine and the team set out to repair its culture and its image.

Season three, which recently dropped on Prime, proposes that this “new era” is well under way. Early on, Pat Cummins, now the team’s respected captain after Paine “stepped down” following a sexting scandal, tells us, “This is the most settled group I’ve played with in my 12 years of playing for Australia.”

What follows charts the team’s unexpected success against India in the World Test Championship final at The Oval in June 2023 and then the Ashes series against England. Although problems arise along the way, the series generally endorses Cummins’ view. It builds on the reasonable notion that players are people too, ordinary Aussie battlers with feelings, wives, kids and parents who just happen to be exceptionally skilled at the game of cricket.

Episodes pivot on efforts to exorcise ghosts of the past. Individually, with opening batsman Usman Khawaja, haunted by the fact that his Test average in England before this series was 19, and all-rounder Mitchell Marsh by the failures that seem to have become his lot at Test level. Collectively, it’s “Headingley 2019”, when an innings by England’s Ben Stokes turned an almost-certain Australian victory into a confidence-shattering defeat.

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There’s an abundance of scenes of team members carrying their littl’uns around, or explaining how important their wives have been to their careers. Cummins talks emotionally about his trip home from the tour of India earlier in the year to be with his mother during her final days, and how much it means to him to now have his father alongside him in England.

As in the series’ previous seasons, the camera takes us behind-the-scenes and into the dressing room (“the sheds”) to discover the camaraderie shared by the team: celebrating teammates’ successes, comforting each other when things go wrong, applauding from the balcony as scores mount. Immediately following the calf injury that brought his tour to an end, Nathan Lyon weeps into a towel.

The Test is especially effective in providing glimpses of the ways in which team spirit is built: the supportive interactions between players, the respect they extend to each other, the roles they play in the team. And, of course, everybody has a nickname: “Ronny” (coach Andrew McDonald – not hard to work that one out), “Bison” (Marsh), “Garry” (Lyon), and so on – adding to the impression that, here, everybody belongs.