England on the verse of regaining Ashes | Mighty Ashes

Ashes, as it has always been, carry a reputation of an action pack series of Test matches. It always has been an excited episode that cricket would ever witness. The flow of runs, fall of wickets, desperate tactics, and splendid display of character has been a feature for any individual participating in one of the world’s oldest Test series.

The first three test matches in this year test series has been a good contest with both bat and ball from both Australia and England. By far England was all over the Aussies in the department of patience as well as making most out of the available resources. The series was in quite a balance as a complete fight back was expected from Aussies in a series where they were 2-1 down already.

With the completion of third test, England already had an upper hand in the series.  With half centuries in both the innings of 3^rd test match, Ian bell rose with the bat while Steven Finn blasted the venom in the Australian dug out to pave a perfect black top for their team in the test match.

Although Chris Rogers with David Warner tried solely in each innings to save the batting collapse, but were definitely out of partners at the other end.  Eventually England won the 3^rd test match and took a lead of 2-1 in the fiery series of test match cricket.

The Smith centered batting line up shrunk as the limelight was not provided by their batting star Steven Smith as he did it at Lords with a terrific Double hundred, quickly followed by half century in the next Innings.

Expectation and reality in clash

Everyone before the start of the 4^th test match were keeping their finger’s cross for what Australia would have in offer for the hosts after their loss in the previous game. In short, an Aussie fight back was always making headlines in media and social networking sites.

So at Toss when Alastair Cook won the toss everybody might have thought about the Warner-Rogers show in the bag but what turned out was absolutely magical from Stuart Board. His fast and furious spell of swing bowling at its top level faded all the flair and left Australia all out on 60 runs, the shortest 1^st innings ever in the history of test cricket.

It took just three balls for Stuart Board to find the achievement that was hung since last test match of 300 wickets in the Test match. Once he swallowed that with the wicket of Chris Rogers, as they say,” Rest is History”.

It was definitely best spell of fast bowling by any English paceman as he ran into the weak ribs of Australian batting with batsmen came and went like a house on fire. Stuart Board’s fierce spell ended with 8 for 15 in 9.3 overs with an economy of 1.57 with 50 dot balls in a shortest stay of 18.3 overs of the opponents.

Joe Root and Addition of Aussie wound

As the day just summed up with Australian batting could hardly manage to hit the ball with just 17 attacking shots out of 111 balls, it was just a matter of time for Captain Clarke to widen up his wounds.

With Alastair Cook all set for a great half century and perfect end of an epic day in the history of English cricket as well as test cricket, Mitchell Starc had another plan.

At 32/0 when opponents where 29/7 an hour ago, the hosts were reduced to 96/3. And the stage was all set for Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, to much of the surprise they didn’t disappoint.

Root Continued his golden period of batting with a marvelous century still not out, along with Jonny Bairstow stood firmly for 173 runs stand and took the game away from Aussies in the very first day’s third session of the test match.

With both batsmen above the strike rate of 75, they didn’t have a mercy on any of the loose balls bowled at them. Their run rate was above 5 most of the time suggesting their hunger for runs in a tough day for batsmen in the business.

England already is way ahead of a dismal Australian 1^st innings run of 60, to be exact by 214 runs. And as mentioned in the closing statement in the summary of www.cricinfo.com, Root leads Australia by 64 runs ends the story in favor of England who are in a verge of winning as well as regaining Ashes 2015 under a superb captain Alastair Cook.

It’s just few days until Australia pull of some magic like they usually do when they are done and dusted. A series that started with all the competent feeling couldn’t go one sided. Only time will tell how Australian players are going to digest this bitter day in the history of their test match.