It took for live action to go all the way down to the last 30 minutes to find the winner of the first Ashes 2023 Test match between England and Australia at Edgbaston. Having lost a historic Test by 2 runs at this very ground 18 years ago, life came full circle for Australia after they secured a nail-biting 2-wicket victory today.
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Chasing a 281-run target, the visitors were running short of resources when captain Pat Cummins (4/122 & 82) headed out to bat with at No. 9. With 72 runs needed to be scored to register a victory, Cummins did the heavy lifting in the presence of spinner Nathan Lyon (8/229 & 17) as the senior duo shared a match-winning 55-run partnership for the ninth wicket.
While England had sealed a record-breaking run-chase in Birmingham Tests last year, Australia have now achieved the joint second-highest target with respect to this particular venue.
ENG vs AUS Man Of The Match Today
Australia, who are currently 1-0 up in a five-match series, wouldn’t have been able to manage a lead had it not been for opening batter Usman Khawaja scoring a 15th Test century and 22nd half-century in the first and second innings respectively.
Only batter to score more than 200 runs in the match, Khawaja was a fitting candidate to win the Man of the Match award on Tuesday. For the unversed, Khawaja also became the 13th cricketer to bat on all five days of a Test in this match.
Khawaja, who faced a grand total of 518 deliveries throughout the match, was successful in holding one end up for the Aussies. Not getting affected by the furore around batting at a faster rate, the 36-year old player oozed assurance with his natural game to work wonders for his team.
“Not going to lie. I was absolutely s***ing myself for the last five minutes there. It’s so heart-wrenching. An unbelievable game. I watched [in] 2005, stayed up late. We had Stokesy [Ben Stokes] play an unbelievable innings [in Leeds] last Ashes, but this is definitely one of my favourite Test matches,” Khawaja told host broadcaster Sky Sports Cricket after winning his fifth match award in Test cricket.
