"Dad, who's winning the cricket?"

This is a question I've been fielding for the past month and a half. I've had plenty of practice fielding this type of question from a very early age. My father and step mum (both luddites when it came to the fine game of cricket) would regularly ask, "Who's winning?" while I was listening to the radio or watching Ritchie B on Channel 9. One can't blame my eldest. Baseball is his game and the game of cricket is as far removed from him as the current West Indian team to the ones that dominated the sport in the 1970's and 80's. 

After losing the second half of Day 4 due to inclement London weather, play resumed slightly late due to more sky beers falling on the playing arena. Two overs from the end of yesterday's play, The Blue Caps successfully petitioned to have the ball changed, under rule 72.3.7 if the current ball has no life, a new one may be taken to cause Australia strife - Shakespeare was a sitting member of the MCC when the original rules were drafted. Now in the dozen balls yesterday, no one saw much difference in how it moved or seamed. However, today was a different story. The umpires basically gifted England with a new nut, and it was hooping for all to see.

Australia resumed at 0/135. It soon became 1/140 (Warner giving a tickle to Weasley from Woakes), then 2/142 (when Khawaja became Woakes second when adjudged LBW). Even before those 2 wickets and the most nervous of 7 runs were scored, the ball was moving like that last Woolworths shopping trolley that everyone has left behind - no two movements were the same.

The Conductor and Smudge began to resurrect the innings, but it didn't look pretty. A boundary or two off wide edges and while the pair put on 28 runs, boy was it shaky. Fire & Wood (apparently on one foot, with a bruised heel) put Marnus out of his misery as he took a high outside edge for Spider to gleefully accept - btw apart from scoring almost 500 runs for the series, his catching in the cordon has been elite. Head came in and did what Head does - he played his natural game. Heady passed Smudge and got to a run a ball two dozen, when things started to slow down a little. The drives from Smudge dried up, as did the clips off the pads from Heady.  

Spin came on to buy a wicket before lunch as the Smudgehead partnership pushed past 50, then just before lunch, this happened - Smudge dropped by Bent. There is so much to analyse here. The shot so close to lunch, the fielding position, the air that Bent got on one usable leg, then length of time he held it, the knock of the ball on his knee, and then the review, decision of not out, the argument, the loss of review, the over-analysis, the not accepting the umpire's decision, and finally - the spirit of cricket! Phew. Like I said, there's a lot here.

Bent, after being encouraged by Weasley to take a review, argued with umpires going into the lunch break, and it seemed to continue as play look to resume for the second session. Then as the first ball was to be bowled, the rain came, and stayed. But it didn't seem to be that heavy according to the Channel 9 coverage, but for all I know the worst ever camera men could have been filming in the one sunny place in the UK on that day - Aberdeen.

I'm not going to lie; I fell asleep during the rain delay. No amount of sugary drink or corn chips could keep me awake when the tension had been removed due to weather. There was also a fear that this could carry on for the remainder of the day, which would mean that the luggage I have been carrying under my eyes would be all for naught. I did awake when Australia were 8 wickets down. The dog and I sharing the couch, while the cat had been relegated to the single seater, surely plotting both of our demises during those few hours. Here's what I can tell you during that period...

Play resumed for an extended final session. Smudgehead progressed, compiling a 95 run stand with 15 boundaries between them. Then Heady fell to Ali just shy of his half ton, and unfortunately, that's where things became dark. In the space of 19 balls, the hosts took 4 wickets. Now while the 11 runs also compiled off the 15 balls that didn't take wickets shows that Australia were compiling at a decent clip for a change, the fact remains - 4 FOR 11. And that was the difference!

Head, then Smudge, then Bison, then Starc. Four batters who can hit the ball. Four batters with higher test averages than mine. And in a blink of an eye, the Aussies were 7/275, still 109 short of victory. The tail batted with Carey for the next 20 overs and accumulated 60 runs. However, when Broad took Carey's wicket with his last ball in test cricket, the end of possibly the most entertaining Ashes series was here. Chris Woakes received the MOTM award, and Mitchell Starc claimed Player of the Series for his 23 wickets. It seems the days of Terry Alderman's 42 wickets in the 1981 series (though there was 6 tests in that series) and The King's 40 wickets in 2005 (in only 5 tests) are gone. Also, no one batter seemed to dominate with no one cracking the 500 run mark (Uzzie the best on 496).

To answer the initial question, after 46 days from the start, I can reply to my son, "No one - it was a draw 😆"

Go well and hopefully see you back in 2027.

And just before the end of 2023, a little bit of drama to finish off:

Australian players locked out of post-series drink with England
Ben Stokes took to social media at 4:11 am local time to clarify the “misunderstanding” that prevented the two teams from meeting up for the traditional post-series drink in the dressing room. Link: https://apple.news/ADHOAIHdqRCabbf2yvADApg

JT