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And so we come to the last Ashes UK View of 2023 – one last jolt of Oliver Holt, a final chance to get down with Oliver Brown and some Nasser Hussain to mess with your brains.
Holt and Brown, the two prominent English cheerleaders, err broadsheet writers, were among many celebrating England’s fightback from 2-0 down to level the series amidst wild celebrations of their team’s moral superiority.
No word of a lie, Brown’s piece on The Telegraph website ran under this headline: “England are clearly better than Australia – the moral victory is real.”
He wrote: “Moral victory has never tasted so exquisite. The sight of Stuart Broad wheeling away like a dervish, departing as a Test bowler with the series-levelling wicket just as he had signed off as a Test batsman with a six, felt truly like a moment of national catharsis.
“Almost an hour after the Ashes’ master choreographer had scripted the perfect coup de theatre, barely a soul inside the Oval had left. Only when the Australian team assembled for a group photograph clutching the urn, which they retained despite not winning a match for almost a month, did the crowd reluctantly take the cue to leave.
“Making memories: this was the banner under which Ben Stokes spelt out his Ashes manifesto. The object, the England captain said, was to ignite the passions of a country, to create a moment that would justify parallels with Ian Botham’s Headingley heroics in 1981 or Freddie Flintoff’s look of hungover bliss as he staggered out of Downing Street in 2005. And in this he succeeded, with Broad’s delirious final act ensuring that the Bazballers would be recorded not as nearly-men but as players who enriched sporting folklore.
“The stated aim of Pat Cummins, Stokes’ opposite number, was equally stark. “The job’s not done,” he said after a sodden, Ashes-retaining anti-climax at Old Trafford, declaring that his Australian side wanted nothing less at the Oval than to become the first since Steve Waugh’s class of 2001 to win a series in England outright. And in this, he has ultimately failed. One side has made good on its mission, the other has fallen short. So who are the true moral winners here?”
And Brown had one last stumping-related zinger to send those of us who stumbled across his column (or came here for work purposes) on our way.
“Australia have brought many laudable qualities to this Ashes summer, with stamina and obduracy in abundance. But it is England who can claim the monopoly on indelible highlights, from Stokes’ 155 in a losing cause at Lord’s to Zak Crawley’s glorious, match-turning 189 before the arrival of a Mancunian monsoon.
“Australia’s most lasting highlight, by contrast, was Alex Carey’s stumping of Jonny Bairstow, an act of such dastardly opportunism that protocols in the Long Room might never be the same again.”
“Moral victory you say?”… (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Nick Hoult, also in the Telegraph, was far less verbose but equally brutal.
“Australia go home with the urn because it rained in Manchester, the hollowest of achievements after blowing a 2-0 lead and withdrew into their shells as the Bazballers made their eyes spin.”
Former England captain Michael Vaughan was critical of the captaincy performance of Pat Cummins, while praising Ben Stokes. He also declared England had won the series by a country mile.
“This Ashes has ended up as a 2-2 draw, but of the two captains there are going to be far more questions about Pat Cummins’ method than Stokes’. It’s very clear what Stokes is trying to achieve. Right now, he wants to get the best out of all the talent that England have, and make them all think about how good they can be,” Vaughan wrote in the Telegraph.
“Meanwhile Cummins and Australia have sent a message to England that they’re almost scared of them. They’ve been so, so worried about what England can do that at times they’ve forgotten about their own strengths.
“So even though they won the World Test Championship final against India and leave England with the urn retained, Cummins goes home with more questions than answers.
England have just got better and better as the series has gone on. To come back so strongly from 2-0 down has been remarkable. We must say they’re only 18 months into this new way of playing.
“Against Australia, they’ve just got better and better at playing their style. The tourists have tried but I think they’ve been spooked by Bazball. In the field they’ve been far too attritional and reactive at times, and they’ve also let England stick to their own plans with the ball. We all talk about the batting side of Bazball but with the ball England have always created new angles and challenges, even on some flat wickets.”
Barely any of the English writers mentioned the scandalous ball change that swung the game Engl;and’s way on the final day, but Vaughan did concede it was “ridiculous”.
He didn’t dwell there however, powering on to conclude: “I know it’s 2-2, but if we had to have a points decision on who’s won, England have won hands down. England have been the better side by a country mile. Without the rain at Old Trafford, they would have got their hands on the urn — but they’ve still got so much to be proud of.”
Oliver Holt, over at the Daily Mail, had sneering anti Bazballers in his sights.
“So Australia retained the Ashes by dint of this 2-2 draw but for anyone who was at the Oval yesterday it did not feel as if Australia had won anything. England won a Test match but their triumph went beyond that. This was a triumph for Bazball, too. And it was a triumph for Test cricket,”Holt swooned.
“This was one of the greatest Test series there has been, a series that swung wildly one way and then another, a series keenly fought, a series full of controversy, a series contested between contrasting styles, a series that delivered Hollywood storylines every day right until the magical last ball.
“That was delivered, of course, by Broad. One of the greatest bowlers of all time, his last delivery in Test cricket snared the final Australia wicket and unleashed one of the loudest roars from the crowd that even this famous old ground has ever heard.
“Whatever label you want to attach to it, the way England have played this summer, the way they have played even since Stokes and McCullum took the helm, has tasted like a nectar that can infuse the game with a rare kind of wonder for years to come.
“Samuel Johnson said that ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ and as this final instalment of this magnificent series played out here on the south bank of the River Thames, it seemed particularly apposite.
“If you are tired of Bazball, you are tired of cricket. If you are tired of Bazball, you are tired of sport. And, yes, if you are tired of Bazball, then, frankly, you are tired of life, too, because the kind of sport we have witnessed over the past seven weeks has filled everyone who has seen it with joy and wonder.”
Yes, he really did!
Barney Ronay, in the Guardian, thought the defining role of Chris Woakes was “an excellent sporting joke in its own way.
“We’re going to reinvent this thing. We’re going to blow the doors off, stick a jukebox in this place, backflip across the walnut tables like ginger-bearded Spice Girls and generally decorate the world with bucket-hatted bro‑vibes. Or at the very least, claw a 2-0 series deficit back to a vibrant 2-2, with fine play on both sides and a worthy retention of the urn by Australia,” wrote Ronay.
“And it turns out we’re going to do all of this via the thrillingly steady seam and swing bowling of 34‑year‑old Chris Woakes, whose inclusion from Headingley to the Oval played a massive hand in transforming England’s series.
“No doubt Stuart Broad will take the headlines for his late intervention against the tail in his final Test, for his bail-finagling, his photogenic whoops and war dances. The question of England’s style will be pored over and dissected, the moral triumphs or otherwise of a puppyish and increasingly buoyant 2-2.
“Baz chat, Baz logic, Baz reasoning will circle the Baz embers of the first great Baz series of mankind’s Bazball era. But make no mistake, here it was something more classical and gentlemanly, the pistol inside the rolled-up newspaper that did for Australia.”
Former England skipper Nasser Hussain might just have nailed it for fans of both teams after an enthralling series with thrills, drama and lashings of banter.
“As someone who loves Test cricket to see what has happened this summer and to see how much the fans have enjoyed it, I want to say to both teams: thank you very much, you have done us all proud,” wrote Hussain.
“Just like with Stuart Broad’s retirement, you always want to leave people wanting more. And that is what this Test series and the last day at the Oval has done for me. I am not walking away thinking, ‘Phew, thank goodness that’s done, we are all knackered, we could all do with a break’. I am walking away thinking, ‘When is the next one of these?’.”
He was also avoiding claims of a moral victory- instead thinking England may have regrets.
“It was fair that England won here, 2-2 is a fair result. I am sure they won’t look back. They will just look at what they’ve done for Test cricket. But if they had lost here and it was 3-1 they may have looked back and been a bit disappointed. Deep down, they may still be a little bit,.
“There were periods earlier in the series where they made mistakes because they were undercooked. They dropped catches, didn’t quite get their batting tempo right in the second innings at Edgbaston and in the first at Lord’s.
“But it was Stokes who changed the mindset midway through the series. Not with his words. His words, at least externally, had the same message. But his cricket, and his batting in particular, was an absolute change in message —almost to say to his team, ‘Come on, we’ve just gone slightly the wrong side of the line of how positive you can be’.
“So for me, what they’ve done in the last two Tests has been perfect. They have entertained, they have played a brilliant brand. But they have tweaked their game just so slightly and they have also won. And winning, as we saw with the scenes here at the Oval, is still important.”