A DREADFUL SERIES

After more than a month, the battle between the two giants of cricket came to an end. And it is Australia who won the series 4-0. It is the third time in a row that Australia has managed to retain the Ashes.

The whole series was dominated by the host, in every part of the game they outplayed the visitors.

The series had it all for Australia, from scoring mammoth totals, impressive debuts, classic comebacks, lethal bowling and much more. But for England, the series was in bits and pieces.

Apart from the fourth test match, which the English team managed to draw after a commendable performance. Other than that, everything went south for Joe Root and his men. Batting failure, sudden collapses, poor fielding and average bowling all of this summarise their tour down under.

But what went wrong for the Englishmen that led them to this massive failure and losing Ashes.

Disastrous start from openers

In the series, the England team tried three different opening pairs but none of them was able to provide them with a solid opening stand to rely upon.

Beginning from the first ball of the series, which resulted in the golden duck for Rory Burns, continuing with Haseeb Hameed scoring several single-digit scores.

Both the openers scored 4 ducks between them. None of the batters registered a single fifty on the tour, apart from Zak Crawley who managed two fifties in the limited opportunities he got.

Misfiring middle order

The Australian pace attack proved a great challenge for the visitors, for which they didn’t have the answer. During the whole series, Englishmen were seen struggling against the pace and bounce of the host bowling attack.

Joe Root did show some great technique and fought back but he couldn’t manage much. Later in the series, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow did show some signs of form. Other than them no other batter has done much.

Lack of speed

The English bowling attack consisted of all-time great James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson, Chris Woakes. But none of them cause any trouble to the host batting apart from Mark Wood who performed brilliantly with his express pace. Other than him no other bowler cause much disturbance in the opponent camp.

Anderson, Broad, Woakes are those kinds of bowlers who are very much dependent on the swing, which is not much offered on the bouncy tracks of Australia. 

Wood was the only bowler who was clocking more than 145 Kmph consistently. Other than him, the rest of the bowlers very rarely managed to go near 140 Kmph.

After this devastating tour, now English team will face the West Indies on their turf in March. Till then they have an ample amount to think about what they can do to make a strong comeback and register some points for the World Test Championship.