England have comprehensively regained the Ashes by beating Australia by an innings and 78 runs at Trent Bridge. The urn has had a fair bit of give and take in the last few years and is now again in English hands. While England must be given credit for winning in such a convincing manner, the road ahead is not easy as tougher challenges lie and chinks still remain in their armour. The Australians will again enter the throes of transition post this series with a new captain and a relatively new set of players. They have many questions to answer.
The fifth and final
Test at the Oval has now been rendered inconsequential.
In terms of the
quality of cricket played, most people are wondering whether this has been one
of the poorest Ashes series they have watched. One cannot blame them for
thinking that way. The overall quality of cricket in this series has not been
exceptional. England bossed the games at Cardiff, Edgbaston and Trent Bridge
and Australia lorded over at Lord’s. None of the Tests went into the 5th
day and the 3rd and 4th Tests were dragged into the third
day with great difficulty. As Jonathan Liew of the Telegraph put it, ‘in a
battle of two evenly flawed and evenly matched teams, England have pulled
decisively clear as a result of better execution and being less inept more
often’. As cricket fans, we like to watch good and competitive Test series,
which this one has not been. We do not enjoy games that end within two or three
days with one team totally dominating the other, however fast-paced they might
be.
This has been the 4th
Ashes series in the last 5 years. Out of the four, three have been won by the
home team. Plus, none of the four have been particularly good when it comes to
the quality of cricket. The first one was the
2010-11 series in which England dominated. The one in England in 2013 was not bad,
as Australia gave a good fight despite England winning. However, it cannot be
classified as a great Test series. The following Ashes in Australia again had
some pretty one - sided cricket with Australia crushing England 5-0.
This year, most neutral fans did not just feel disappointed by the
cricket, but also felt fatigued by the overdose of Ashes series. A feeling is
on the rise that the number of Ashes series increasing in a stipulated time
period cannot be good. This is because this can dilute the nature of the
historic contest. No-one would want a series like this to lose colour because of being overdone. One gets reminded of the old adage 'Too many cooks spoil the broth'.
