Australia begin The Ashes this week as World Test Champions after their resounding victory over India on Sunday confirmed them as the greatest team in cricket’s oldest and longest format.
The Aussies’ victory by 209 runs in the World Test Championship final at The Oval might not automatically make England’s task harder, but what it does do is underline the fact that the five-Test series starting on Friday and running until July 31 will be the biggest challenge yet for the hosts’ new ultra-attacking ‘Bazball’ approach.
Travis Head’s dazzling 163 and 121 from Steve Smith set Australia on course for victory on day one despite having been put in by India captain Rohit Sharma. While Sharma’s counterpart Pat Cummins admitted afterwards that he, too, would have bowled first had he won the toss, the Australians’ ability to see off the new ball in unfriendly conditions and then make hay as the weather improved teed up a largely one-sided contest.
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To some eyes this may well be an ageing Australia side since openers David Warner and Usman Khawaja are both 36, Nathan Lyon is 35, Steve Smith and Scott Boland are 34, and Mitchell Starc 33. But the injection in recent years of the likes of Head, Marnus Labuschagne and Cameron Green, all of whom are the right side of 30, makes for a natural succession plan within the ranks. And in the seven weeks ahead, Cummins’ squad will boast the perfect blend of youthful exuberance and weathered experience as a result of this mix.
Head looks a particular danger for Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum to worry about given his form batting at number five. If in the past it felt like the dismissals of Smith and Labuschagne might give an opposition the chance to drill through the remainder of the batting order, that simply isn’t true now with the South Australia star providing the tourists’ best replica of a Bazball exponent.
He scored two important centuries in Australia’s 4-0 series win over England in 2021-22, hammering 152 off 148 balls in the First Test at The Gabba to put the hosts in command from the off, then rescuing his side from 12 for 3 on the first morning of the Hobart encounter by smacking 101 from 113 to turn a perilous position into a winning lead. There was no wonder he was named Player of the Series immediately after that crowning moment.
For as much as England can boast a number of players who have taken to their tasks just as positively as Head over the past 12 months, this is the first time they have come up against an Australian attack. Cummins, Starc, Boland, Lyon and Green are a level up from those units Stokes, Harry Brook, Ben Duckett et al have slapped all around the field in recent months.
Over the last week alone Australia’s bowlers have dealt with the likes of Virat Kohli, Sharma, Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara with relative ease. Only Ajinkya Rahane, with 89 and 46, can feel like he truly got the measure of them over the course of the two innings. The bowling attack were never out of the contest at any point, and once Boland had disposed of Kohli on the final morning there was never any doubt as to how quickly the final was going to be over.
England have every right to head into Friday with renewed confidence, but the new World Test Championship cycle begins with Australia still very much at the top of the sport. Bazball be warned.
*18+ \ BeGambleAware | Odds Subject to Change
