Australia had been recently crowned the World Test Champions. England, on the other hand, had not experienced what a Test series loss felt like for a considerable period of time. The Ashes 2023 was, thus, justifiably hyped up to the core.
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As a five-match series has come to an end, one of the teams will have its head slightly held high, but the ultimate score line will only make both the teams humble and definitely proud of themselves for having put out the best possible advertisement for Test cricket over the last six weeks.
Ashes 2023 Highlights
It all began with a Zak Crawley boundary on the very first delivery of the series bowled by the Australian captain Pat Cummins. Fans were convinced that the ‘Bazball‘ was truly on and there was no looking back. Beware Australia! With Joe Root still batting past his century, English captain Ben Stokes surprisingly decided to declare the innings a few minutes before the close of play. The decision ultimately backfired, as Cummins and Nathan Lyon‘s determined ninth- wicket partnership helps the visitors win a tough contest by 2 wickets.
There was much more drama during the second Test at Lord’s. Having lost four of their batters by the end of Day 4, the hosts were staring at a probable defeat en route a target of 371 runs. However, into the final day, the pair of Stokes and Ben Duckett stitched together a century stand for the fifth wicket as England marched closer to the target. However, the biggest moment of the day arrived after Alex Carey stumped Jonny Bairstow and which would later become a huge matter of debate and discussion till the beginning of the third Test.
Post Bairstow’s wicket, something snapped within Stokes as he decided to take the Aussie bowlers to the cleaners. He went on to smash nine fours and as many sixes to take his individual score to 155 as Cummins was left scratching his head. Having threatened to repeat the heroics of Headingley Test of 2019, there seemed to be no stopping the left-hander. However, his innings was halted by Josh Hazlewood as England lost the second Test by 43 runs.
A top quality English side was surely not down and out after a couple of close losses. The respective comebacks of Chris Woakes and Mark Wood with a bang helped them a great deal both with ball and the bat. Having been set a target of 251 runs, the home side accomplished the same in exactly 50 overs by the fourth day itself. Wood was adjudged the ‘Player of the Match‘ for scalping seven wickets and scoring a quick fire 24 (8) in the first innings.
England lost out on a great opportunity to win the fourth Test in Manchester due to relentless rain washing out the entire play on Day 5. Having posted a mammoth total of 592 in their first innings in reply to Australia’s 317, the hosts had taken a massive first innings lead. However, rain interruptions had meant that Australia managed to retain the Ashes urn on the back of a drawn contest with the series score line reading 2-1 being in their favour.
Come the fifth and final Test at The Oval, England were seeking for a moral victory while the Aussies were eyeing an away Ashes series victory for the first time since 2001. While it seemed like England were the clear favourites before the start of the fourth innings, Australian openers in David Warner and Usman Khawaja managed to stitch together a 140-run partnership in a 384-run chase.
However, in what turned out to be another see-saw battle, the visitors slipped from 264/3 to 275/7 in the last session. Playing the final Test of their respective careers, Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali scalped five of the last six Australian wickets to fittingly hand their side a victory by 49 runs as a stellar five-match series ended with a score of 2-2.
Is Ashes 2023 The Best Series In This Century?
If not the best, it is certainly one of the best and can easily find its mention in the Top 3 greatest Test series of this century. Be it the neck-to-neck battle between the two top-quality sides right till the final session of the series, the criticisms by fans on social media, debates by experts, below-the-belt sledges especially from the crowds at Edgbaston or even the supposed gentlemanly ones at the Lord’s. One would wonder, what else was left to be seen in the series?
With none of the margin of victories for either teams being outright lopsided, one cannot exclaim it with certainly as to which team should have or deserved to lift the Ashes urn.
Ashes 2005
As far as the Ashes rivalry is concerned, one which comes arguably closed is the 2005 season – which England had won by a 2-1 margin. The second Test at Edgbaston was one of the all-time classics. England had adopted the modern-day ‘Bazball’ approach in the first innings due to the humiliation they had to face in the first Test at Lord’s.
The closely contested third Test in Manchester and the fourth one at Nottingham also lends this series the prestigious tag. However, Australia’s massive victory in the first Test and a draw during the fifth Oval Test does not arguably make this series rank right up there.
India’s Tour Of Australia 2020/21
India’s second consecutive Test series victory on the Australian soil during the 2020/21 tour can arguably make it to list of all-time greats in this century alongside Ashes 2023. Not that there were no one-sided matches during that four-match series, but the manner in which the visitors had bounced back to win it 2-1 after a disastrous batting performance in the first Adelaide Test is a story of one of the greatest comebacks in cricketing history.
Winning the second Melbourne Test in the absence of then-captain Virat Kohli, especially after getting annihilated in the first Test infamously remembered for India’s 36 all out during the second innings, deserves to be documented to say the least.
But, this was not it. India then drew the Sydney Test, courtesy of a defiant show with the bat by Ravichandran Ashwin and a severely injured Hanuma Vihari. Cut to The Gabba for the fourth Test, the visitors humbled the hosts and how! A second-string Indian line-up took on the full-strength Aussie side and handed them their first Test defeat at their fortress in 32 years.
