It looked obvious that Australia would pull it off when the fourth day of Ashes 2023 ended. However, the brilliance of Stokes utilizing his bowler and them performing to their utmost potential turned the tables in their favor. This is now the 6th time consecutively that the current WTC champions have failed to clinch a clear victory on English soil. The last time Australia won Ashes in the UK was in 2001 by a margin of 4-1. Now it has ended in a 2-2 draw.
A couple of changes that the England team will go through include the retirement of Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali. Broad announced his retirement early, and Ali came out after the series. The spinner is clear to the extent that he has joked about deleting any message that Ben Stokes sends him, asking him to reconsider his retirement. Notably, Moeen Ali had announced that he would not play Ashes 2023. It was Stokes who asked him to reconsider the decision with the intention of getting him back to the side.
James Anderson is next in line for retirement. As for the Australian side, all eyes are on David Warner. He has been out of form for a long time. Except for his last performance, every innings he played were disappointing for management and fans alike.
Stuart Broad leaves the red-ball format with 2 wickets to his name in the last innings. He picked up Alex Carey and Todd Murphy in the 95th and 91st over, respectively. Both of them were looking to play some strong shots and make up for the trail.
Chris Woakes has been named Player of the Match for taking 3 wickets off 61 runs in the first innings and 4 wickets off 50 runs in the second innings. Mitchel Starc takes home the title of Player of the Series. Starc’s performance throughout the series has been nothing but fabulous. The most recent event, for instance, is where he picked up a total of 8 wickets.
The 33-year-old left-arm fast bowler has 333 wickets to his name throughout 156 innings that he has played. Eight wickets came from the last match alone, with 4 each from an inning. He was also one of the most economical bowlers in the 5th installment. The first innings, when England put up a total of 283, was majorly due to the hurdles that Starc put up at the economy of 5.59. This happened despite bowling a single maiden over out of 14.4 overs.
Enter the second inning, and one sees his economy slipping down to 5.00 for 4 wickets in 20 overs. For a while, he single handedly managed to unbalance the predictions of top sites for cricket betting by his spell.
England gladly rose to the challenge. Moeen Ali made the best use of the surface at The Oval. He picked up 3 wickets, just a single behind Chris Woakes, at an economy of 3.30.
Australia is now headed to South Africa. England is gearing up to host New Zealand for their upcoming series of events.
