A thrilling Ashes summer comes to an end at the Kia Oval this week, with Australia’s 2-1 lead ensuring they will be bringing the urn home with them.
England have plenty to play for too, shooting for a draw that would maintain an undefeated record in the ‘Bazball’ era and spoil their rivals’ celebrations.
Here, the PA news agency looks at five key talking points.
Changing of the guardWhile there are no confirmed retirements on the cards, this game looks like the end of an Ashes era. Both teams are packed with thirty-somethings, several of whom are unlikely to pass this way again. Moeen Ali came out of retirement to answer an SOS but is almost certain to step away again, James Anderson turns 41 during the match and may finally be making his Ashes swansong, while Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood are not getting any younger. Australian opener David Warner is definitely saying goodbye to this particular rivalry and has a handful of team-mates who are long shots to be back here in four years. Expect a few poignant moments.
Anderson in focusAnderson and England have nipped speculation about his future in the bud, with both parties insisting the most prolific seam bowler in Test history is not ready to hang up his boots just yet. But with time marching onwards, now would be the ideal time to show he is still operating at the highest level. Four wickets at 76.75 is a dreadful return for a player of his imperious standing and he will know it. The selectors have kept the faith and he needs to repay with his best performance of the series. With the likes of Josh Tongue, Ollie Robinson and Matthew Potts itching for a chance, he cannot wait too long.
A fresh start for Crawley?Amid the frustration of last week’s rain-ruined draw, Zak Crawley peeled off one of the most remarkable Ashes centuries ever. His 189 from 182 balls was a modern classic and underlined in bold the reasons England have stuck with him for so long. That innings has surely bought him time, but he needs to use it as a staging post. His last huge score, 267 against Pakistan in 2020, proved something of a false dawn but he is older, wiser and more experienced now. Armed with a high-class, high-pressure ton against England’s biggest rivals, the 25-year-old must try and peak more frequently – starting now.
Can captain Cummins bounce backAustralia skipper Pat Cummins did not look like a man who had won the World Test Championship and retained the Ashes at Old Trafford. In the field he looked passive at times and reactive at others and his own form evaporated as he turned in dire figures of one for 129 during England’s batting assault. He has even attracted some critics Down Under who want to see him step away from the role, despite his achievements this summer. Another loss would only intensify those calls and he needs to turn in an authoritative show to quieten them down.
22 years of hurtIt is hard to overestimate how much Australia want to turn their advantage into an outright series win. The last time the Baggy Greens won behind enemy lines was back in 2001, with defeats in 2005, 2009, 2013, 2015 and a 2-2 draw four years ago. Many of the current squad were involved in the 2019 contest, over-celebrating ahead of the Oval decider and coming unstuck. They are hungry to put that right this time, while England are keen to see them fall at the last hurdle. England’s triumph Down Under in 2010-11 – a series both Anderson and Broad played in – remains the last away Ashes win and the hosts want to keep it that way.
IPL: Mumbai Indians condemned to last-place finish after 18-run defeat to Super Giants
Rohit Sharma's half-century was not enough for Mumbai Indians as they slipped to an 18-run defeat to Lucknow Super Giants at Wankhede Stadium.
The defeat consigned Mumbai to bottom place in the Indian Premier League for the second time in the space of three seasons, after losing 10 matches this year.
LSG were also left to lament their misfortune, as despite reaching 14 points, they did not qualify for the play-offs.
KL Rahul's 55 got the ball rolling for Lucknow, but their innings was ebbing out until Nicholas Pooran's dazzling 29-ball 75 took them to 214-6, despite the efforts of Nuwan Thushara (3-28) and Piyush Chawla (3-29), who stepped up in Jasprit Bumrah's absence.
Rohit's 38-ball 68 set the tone for what looked set to be a promising Mumbai chase, as he struck 13 boundaries around a short rain delay.
However, Mumbai went from 88 without loss to 120-5 in the space of six overs, leaving the tail with too much of a mountain to climb.
Data Debrief: Lucknow miss out
While Mumbai sit bottom of the pile yet again, it is a case of what might have been for LSG, who for the first time in their three-season history, failed to make the top four.
Fourteen points is often enough to get over the line and into the play-offs, but their poor net run rate of -0.667 means they miss out.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
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