The fourth test, the one that got away. For three days England played possibly their best cricket under the current regime, then came the rain which did enough to enforce the draw. Australia actually came third in this match.
Barking mad Bairstow had his best game as keeper for at
least five years then when interviewed admitted he wasn’t really fit enough to
be keeping wicket. If Foakes (no I won’t
let it go) had been included at the beginning of the summer the man most likely
to have been jettisoned was Zak Crawley who played a blinder and Chris Woakes, another
player I’ve written off many times took five for. Crucially, we were much better in the field,
clinging onto the important catches. Yes
a cricket cliché but catches win matches and that is the main reason the Ashes
will be returning to Australia whatever the result next week.
For England here won’t be any dramatic changes in personnel,
nor should there be on the strength of what we saw in Manchester. At this moment, sitting here I can’t see
anything other than an emphatic England win to level the series which would
feel right.
The other series finished level too which left England’s
women by far the happier of the two teams, for the first time in a long time
the Aussies were shown to be only human and didn’t much like it.
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