Yes Smith is the reason the Urn is coming home with the Australians, but Ben Stokes is the reason England have looked like a team who can compete with Australia. Massive respect to England for fighting that hard yesterday, also to Stuart Broad who has been a one man army with the ball for England.
The Australian bowling has been amazing, Cummins is the #1 in the world for a reason, Hazelwood not far behind and Lyon has had a tough series, but he is the Goat for a reason and will bounce back. The main difference for mine is that the Aussie bowlers operate as a team, Broad just doesn't have that around him.
Shows how big a loss Anderson was. On home soil he's right up there with the best (if not the best swing bowler around) and was a huge loss for us. Add Archer to him, Broad and Stokes and in the UK that's a high quality attack who could work together well.
We always knew the ball would dominate, but you've had the best player in the world on fire with the bat and chanced upon your next best player, who may not have even played without Smith's injury. The rest of your batting stats are woeful (as are ours too btw). While we've made selection errors and been missing a guy with almost 600 test wickets.
You've deserved the Ashes but there's not a massive amount between the two sides when you break it down.
Anderson missing was a real shame for everyone, as not sure we'll see him again in an Ashes series, certainly not at home anyway. He deserved one last go at the Aussies on home soil
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Topic: Englands Test Summer - IRE + AUS (Read 161606 times)