Finally rain did not approve of England winning the Ashes and the only thing remaining is they could only end in a tie if they won the last test. England must be highly disappointed with the match result. They were looking in great touch throughout the match. Their tactics of Bazball cricket helped them.
Restricting Australia to a defendable score and then afterwards they scored at the rate of 5.53 which is quite commendable and gets a lead of over 200 runs. But nature has other plans for them. Australia scored 214/5 at the end of day 4. And on day 5 not a single ball was delivered. Aussies might be feeling a little happy as they now have the chance to win the Ashes as they were leading by 2-1.
Zak Crawley, Awarded Player of the Match,
“We were in a really good position to win but the weather ruined it. We’ll go on to the next one and hope to win. We played a lot of good cricket on day 3 and even yesterday, but the rain cost us. We played really well as a team. I’d say this is my best innings, it’s my favorite one. I felt in good touch. I knew a score was coming if I stuck with the process. I haven’t been stuck at one end against quality bowling. They haven’t had a chance to set me up.
….I’ve tried to take a few more singles and get boundaries when I get going. I take a lot of confidence, every bowler I’ve faced from their side has been high quality. Duckett is a phenomenal player, seeing him score a lot of runs. We’re very different so it works quite well. Every game is massively important for us, we keep building.”
Ben Stokes, England Captain,
“It’s a tough one to take. The kind of cricket we played on the first three days and to be on the wrong side of the weather, it’s a tough one. But It’s a part of the journey. I think coming into this game, it was a do or die game for us. Bowling them out for 320 and scoring 590, we couldn’t do much. We’ll have a lot of pride to play the next game. The injury to Pope made us think about the structure of the team. Very pleased with everyone’s effort.
….I have been vocal about Crawley, what Zak does is he changes the game. The way he plays and the way he takes the bowlers on. That was an incredible innings, we knew an innings like that was not far away.
….Broad and Jimmy have been unbelievable examples. Broad loves the battle and he loves playing against Australia. He has a good record against them.
About Edgbaston, he added, “No. we know what the last game means to us as a team. And we want to finish off on a high. Want the crowd to come out and support us.”
Pat Cummins, Australia Captain,
“Our preference is come over here and win the Ashes. Not the greatest of circumstances but happy to retain it now. What happened today doesn’t really change hwo we look at the next game. It’s been an amazing group, we all turned up here very motivated. Will be a special week at the Oval. England batted really well. We tried a couple of plans but it didn’t work. We weren’t at our best so we’ll look into that.
About his fitness, he added, “Feel pretty good. Having a break leading into this game was good. Probably haven’t bowled a lot of overs, feeling good. Marnus was fantastic with Marsh yesterday. He got to show his class out there. We all turned up here to win the series, retaining the Ashes is nice but we’re fully focused on winning it.”