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111 balls, 93 minutes, All out for 60. That performance from not only Australia but also Stuart Broad on the first morning of the first day will go down in Ashes folklore forever.
It’s effectively what signed, sealed and delivered the Ashes back to England in what has been one of the strangest Ashes series I can remember.
From England winning the first Test quite easily at Cardiff, to Australia’s dominance at Lord’s only to be smashed to look like a bottom ranked Test nation if not worse at Birmingham and Nottingham. There have been many ups and downs for both teams, ending up with England on the right side of the ups.
This was the unlosable Ashes according to us Australians, which I, now embarrassingly, thought was going to be the case. I knew we struggle in English conditions but I genuinely thought we had the team that we take us to our first Ashes win on English soil since 2001.
How wrong I have been.
If this series has anything to learn it’s that we struggle once we play on the other hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere pitches are quite alike whether it’s at Sydney, Johannsaburg or Hamilton. Once we go over the equator we can’t seem to adapt to those conditions.
If we are to improve in English or sub-continent conditions we need more practice in that, and to that our Test cricketers need to play more red ball cricket.
We hold the Ashes as the greatest prize in cricket so we need our Test players to start playing country cricket more so that playing in the IPL or other T20 competitions and stop some players playing so many ODIs.
Look at Chris Rogers, a Test specialist and has been our best batsmen on this tour and has been the rock for every series he has been involved in since his return to international cricket.
Unfortunately due to the type of cricket being played with so many T20 games and ODIs his type of cricketer is an endangered species which we will miss once he retires.
However as much as I can go on about Australia and ways we need to go about it in future, I must give credit to England. They played a fantastic series so far, bar the Lord’s Test.
Broad and Anderson have once again been outstanding and showed they are still fearsome to face. Even Finn, Wood and Stokes showed they have what it takes as well.
With the bat it is hard to go past Root, the now No.1 ranked Test batsman in the world, who has had a superb series.
It’s good to see they have a few players who are up and coming, but it still burns me they have won back the Ashes so comprehensively.
Going into the fifth Test now anything can happen, especially with Michael Clarke announcing his retirement so the Aussies will want to won for him but the English will be on such a high that they could still rout us once again badly.
For Australia careers will be on the line for the fifth Test. Voges, Rogers, Shaun Marsh, Siddle, Haddin and Watson are all guys who may never grace the Test squad again.
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