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On July 31, Monday, England completed a historic comeback in the Ashes in the fifth and final Test at The Oval, to level the series 2-2 against Australia. It was Stuart Broad while playing in his final international match, who picked up the final two wickets to hand the hosts a famous win by 49 runs in London.
At one stage during the Ashes series, England were 0-2 down, after losing the first two Tests by a close margin. The critics and naysayers were not happy with the English team management at that time, criticising their BazBall strategy as the main culprit for losing back-to-back matches. But under the captaincy of Ben Stokes, the team stuck to their guns, employing the BazBall strategy, wherein the attack is the best form of defence, to end up squaring the Ashes after five gruelling Tests against Australia.
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BazBall, which has arguably made Test cricket more entertaining for the fans, changed the fortunes of England in the longest format of the game, since the summer of 2022. With it, they have managed to beat teams like New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Australia in the past year, staking a claim to be the best Test team in the world.
During the post-match press conference after The Oval win, when Ben Stokes, the captain of England was asked, “Can BazBall work in India?,” he had an interesting response to it, which read, “I remember when we beat New Zealand 3-0, (the chatter) was we couldn't do it against South Africa, (we) couldn't do it against Pakistan, (we) couldn't do it against Australia. So who knows if we can do it against India, only time will tell.”
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The 32-year-old also discussed how the final scoreline after five Tests was a fair reflection on Ashes this time around. He said, "Feel really good. 2-2 is a fair reflection at the end of the series. Australia, WTC champions, absolute quality team. Don't think many teams would've been able to respond like we did after being 2-0 down. Very proud of the entire team and the effort they put in.
“Having played a lot of cricket here, you know what it's like in the 4th innings. Australia played really well yesterday but turning up here and knowing that you still need 250 runs is really tough. The wickets came in clusters like they usually do,” added Ben Stokes.
