Australia’s Ashes defence is off to the perfect start, with a nine-wicket win over England at the Gabba beginning the series in style.
From Travis Head’s player of the match-securing century to Pat Cummins’ fairytale five-wicket haul on his first day as Test captain, there were plenty of Australians who have hit the ground running for the summer. Meanwhile, England are facing some major selection dilemmas, with spinner Jack Leach, opener Rory Burns and even star all-rounder Ben Stokes all struggling mightily in Brisbane
Now’s your chance to rate all 22 players for their batting, bowling, sledging and fielding from the first Test.
If you’ve followed our DIY ratings for the Wallabies over the years, then you’ll know the score, but if not, here’s what each mark out of 10 usually corresponds to:
1. An utter nightmare. Their team would genuinely have been better off with 10. Shane Warne will be calling for their head all summer long.
2. Anonymous. Was he even there?
3. Did some things that you expect of an international player, but did a whole bunch of other things that sucked.
4. Was passable in patches, but not up to standard in a match of such importance.
5. Did his job without anything really noticeable happening.
6. Good.
7. Pretty good, actually.
8. Very good.
9. Excellent.
10. Magnificent. Calling them the player of the match would be an insult. Just give him the Allan Border Medal already.
If you’re after some more inspiration, here’s how we rated the two teams.
Did Mitchell Starc do enough to silence the critics for the rest of the summer? Was Cameron Green’s bowling enough to outweigh his first-ball duck? Does Alex Carey’s flawless wicketkeeping display on debut matter more than his two failures with the bat? Now’s your chance to have your say, so get to the form below and start voting!
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