The Aussies have retained the Ashes and this was by no mean a small achievement by them. Any test match between the Australians and the Englanders is reminiscent of test match between India and Pakistan. Passions run high and it is the desire of the players on both the sides to put in their best.
After winning the Twenty20 cricket championship, the morale of the England team was very high and the consensus opinion was that it will win this year’ s Ashes also hands down. Recently batsmen like Stokes, Bairstow and Roots and bowlers like Broad have shown their class and many believed they can even singlehandedly turn the tables on the Kangaroos.
The Aussies , however, proved themselves a hard nut to crack. Their paceman Starch and Cummings , in particular, proved too good for the England’s batsmen and Steve Smith through his consistent excellent batting proved that he is undoubtedly the best batsman in the world today. India’s Kohli and England’s Roots also, no doubt, are ranked as best batsmen around but when it comes to their comparison with Smith the latter is definitely a cut above from them. The present line-up of both England and Australia makes them the two topmost elevens in the world in all the three formats of the game. Smith remained suspended for one year and didn’t play international cricket during that period but that didn’t diminish his passion or dampen his spirits and when he returned to international cricket he staged a comeback with a bang.
- Latest
- Trending
