There is a chill in the air. Leaves are falling on the ground. Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé are defrosting. It can only mean one thing… its nearly time for an Ashes series down under! In the 143 years since one of sport’s most riveting rivalries began, England have won on Aussie territory just 14 times. Can the 2025-26 series add to that tally? Well, only if England know how to be clinical and consistent. They need to know how to really Bazball.
The last Ashes series in Australia was certainly one to forget for England. The 2021-22 series began with Rory Burn’s first ball dismissal at the Gabba by Mitchell Stark, which set a tone England never really recovered from. The 4-0 series result, a narrowly avoided whitewash, led to a complete upheaval of the England Cricket set up. Ben Stokes was appointed captain and Brendon “Baz” McCullum as head coach. England went on to win 11 out of the 13 first tests played under their leadership. The style of play and their self-proclamation of being “rockstars” led to the rebranding of cricket as something that is now “cool” (or at least that’s what I keep telling myself). Their new-found confidence and winning ability set up the 2023 series perfectly, and it did not disappoint.
If the first ball of the 2021-22 series set the tone for the disaster to come, the first ball of the 2023 series assured the Aussies they were ready for a fight. In front of a packed crowd at Edgbaston, Zak Crawley crushed Pat Cummins’s first ball away to the boundary for four. And the game was on. A back-and-forth series which, due to the Mancunian weather we all know and love washing out the third test, ended in a 2-2 draw. The biggest compliment the series received was its comparison to the 2005 series, which saw England end their 18-year losing streak and made icons of players like Freddie Flintoff and Kevin Pieterson. While the comparison is apt in terms of public interest, memorable moments and two great teams, there is one thing that 2005 series had that the 2023 series did not. It is the thing that is stopping this team from going from great to legendary. The one thing that Bazball needs to win the Ashes. They need to actually win the ashes.
England are getting very good at drawing series they should be winning. In 2023, Ben Stokes’s declaration in the first test led to a tailenders fight back from Australia, and the lack of pace in the bowling attack left England 2-0 down. It was a dominant display in Manchester but proved fruitless when the rain fell. The reintroduction of Mark Wood and Chris Woakes for the last two tests reinvigorated the team and a draw was claimed by England as a moral victory.
The absence of a deserved overall win in series is an ongoing issue for England, evident in their recent series against India this summer. An inexperienced Indian team presented England with a great opportunity to travel to Australia with a series victory against one of the best teams in the world. However, they once again left with a draw having lost the final test by 6 runs. England once again showed moments of dominance, yet they failed to convert it into a series win. It is a pattern that needs to be broken for England to bring Bazball from an entertaining relative success to an Ashes winning strategy.
You may think I am being overly pessimistic about this England team, who have undoubtedly been the most entertaining and inspiring since the 2005 squad. But I am an England cricket fan of many years, and I have got my hopes up so high before. I remember waking up at four o’clock in the morning in December 2021 thinking a draw was coming our way, only to watch Jos Buttler stand on his own stumps after facing over 200 balls. Watching the evolution of the team into this so-called Bazball era has been joyful, and going into games believing England can win has been a welcome relief from the previous years of expected tragedy. But Bazball needs to prove it can win big series, as well as be good viewing.
For England to go to Australia and bring the Ashes back home, it would be a massive effort. It still feels like the 2023 series was a massive, missed opportunity for England, and to win in Australia will be significantly harder. But it doesn’t matter whether I or anyone else thinks they are going to win, because the team sure believes they can.
And I for one, am very excited to watch them try.
