Australia retained the Ashes despite playing the lesser cricket overall

Peter Langston | August 01, 2023

Another fascinating Ashes series which again emphasises the importance and relevance of the five Test series. Australia retained the Ashes despite playing the lesser cricket overall.

England won more of the scheduled 75 sessions. They were the aggressors to Australia’s scrambled defenders. England deserved three Test victories and threw away a fourth when they blew clear chances at Edgbaston.

Stokes was far and away the more superior captain: Cummins heroic but flustered, bereft of options, ideas or comeback. His best contributions were glib comments at press conferences.

England out batted, out bowled and out fielded Australia in a bizarre case of identity theft which reverse nearly 150 years of conflict between the two. It is true they always had the better of the conditions, including choice at the toss, weather (except Manchester) and even down to the reckless effort of the umpires late in the game at the Oval, when they traded a 1968 Cortina for last year’s Ferrari and to no surprise, England’s attack suddenly roared through their hapless opponents.

If Crawley was unlucky to not be England’s man of the series with his aggressive batting and 9 splendid catches at slip, Khawaja must have been gobsmacked. Starc was named the Australian champion for inconsistently picking up souvenirs from the dying on battlefields of defeat after Khawaja had stood toe to toe with chest thrust out, on fields he was supposed to be incapable of navigating and did so during the heat of every battle. Perhaps his willingness to engage the boorish members at Lords was his Waterloo?

Many of England enhanced their standing by performance - their top six with the bat and all their bowlers except Anderson. Bairstow is not a keeper: keepers have feet and they rarely need to dive. Still, he dove largely to good effect.

Such glowing accolades can’t be steered in the Australian’s direction. Khawaja was superb; Smith, Head and Hazlewood held their own and Warner was much improved over 2019. Marsh had his moments but as has always been, consistently is his ball and chain. Green, Boland, Cummins and Starc were tarnished and battered and had no sensible answers to England’s batting approach. Green held some brilliant catches but shrunk as a Test batsman. One could almost use the word inept as a job lot for all four of them. Labuschagne, despite a match saving hundred at Manchester, looked lost and has left England in much the same manner as Doug Walters did in 1972. There will be demons in his kitbag when he returns which runs on Australian pitches in the meantime will not exorcise.

Carey was superb with the big mits on but inattentive with the bat the longer the series went. One wonders how heavily the pshaw over his clever and perfectly acceptable stumping of Bairstow weighed on such a gentle character?

In the end, the loss of Lyon was Australia’s millstone. The unavailability of his bowling and tactical acumen and what that gives his skipper, was the glaring breech in Australia’s armour. Murphy is a better bat and at least as good a fielder, but we’ll never know if his underused and greatly ignored bowling might have aided Australia’s cause. Then, at least he got a game. An in form, condition ready Michael Neser never got beyond sub fielding.

In the end, England played smarter cricket, better cricket and their claim of a moral victory was finally justified at the Oval.

I’m looking forward to a month or so of sleep.