Australia’s cricket team have kept the receipts and are relishing in seeing the brash pre-series Ashes predictions blowing up in the face of England commentators.
Australia survived a gritty fightback from England on Day 5 in Adelaide to claim an 82-run victory and take an unassailable 3-0 series lead, ensuring the Ashes remains in Australian hands for a fifth consecutive series.
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The Aussies won the Ashes in just 11 days, equalling the record set twice by Steve Waugh’s men in the early 2000s — a remarkable feat considering Steve Smith missed the Adelaide Test and Josh Hazlewood has been unavailable through injury.
Many predicted a much closer contest given England’s explosive batting line-up and a fast bowling cartel assembled with the sole mission of taking down Australia at home.
Some of the comments made in the lead-up to the highly anticipated showdown look seriously foolish now, so here’s a quick recap.
Stuart Broad said: “It’s probably the worst Australian team since 2010 when England last won, and it’s the best English team since 2010.
“It’s actually not an opinion, it’s fact. So those things match up to the fact it’s going to be a brilliant Ashes series.”
Piers Morgan boldly predicted: “The Ashes is upon us … England has a better team, a better captain, and better management.
“The Urn is coming home, and I genuinely think we’ll beat Australia either 4-0 or 5-0.”
Morgan’s social media feed throughout the first three Tests makes for enjoyable reading from an Australian perspective, as he experiences the rollercoaster of being a delusional Bazball believer.
But the cold heart truth is the Bazball philosophy has failed and England have now gone winless in their past 18 Test matches in Australia — 16 of those matches have been losses.
Marnus Labuschagne told the ABC post-game: “Being called the worst Australian team in 15 years…it’s nice to be sitting where we are, 3-0 up.”
Pat Cummins was asked if he took any satisfaction from making Broad’s now infamous comments look completely silly.
“I mean, yeah it’s great. So much hype coming into the series and you never really know how it’s going to play out,” the Australian captain said in his post-game press conference.
“To win 3-nil is hugely satisfying for many reasons but particularly…a lot of the chat before the series is how evenly poised it’s going to be.
“To win in straight sets, it doesn’t get much better than that.”
Ashes predictions come back to bite Poms
Are Travis Head and Alex Carey in your combined XI now?
Some pre-series calls are looking absolutely foolish now, none more so than the combined Ashes XI voted for by BBC Sport readers.
The XI featured Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Cam Green, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes, Jamie Smith, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Jofra Archer.
You could potentially make a case for Crawley, Root, Stokes and Archer, but it’s quite telling that two of Australia’s most influential players in the series so far — Head and Carey — were snubbed.
Michael Vaughan, Glenn McGrath and Phil Tufnell voted for Harry Brook over Head in their combined XI, while only McGrath picked Carey as the preferred wicketkeeper.
As for the series scorelines, McGrath’s prediction that Australia would win 5-0 is one of the few tips that has stood the test of time.
Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan predicted a 2-2 draw, while Ricky Ponting predicted 3-2 to Australia.
Former England spinner Phil Tufnell had England winning 3-2, as did longtime BBC commentator Jonathan Agnew.
Ex-Australian spinner and Kayo Sports commentator Kerry O’Keeffe told news.com.au he expected England to put up a fight but for Australia to win 3-2.
Khawaja’s cheeky T-shirt sledge
Usman Khawaja shared a cheeky photo of himself in the dressing rooms wearing a T-shirt with the tagline ‘Ronball’ and a cartoon of Australian coach Andrew McDonald — in a not so subtle dig at the Poms.
Travis Head said: “Ronball is purring, isn’t it?”
It’s fair to say Ronball, Travball, or whatever you want to call Australia’s style of play — has completely outclassed England’s much-hyped aggressive approach.
England captain Ben Stokes said the 3-0 scoreline “hurt” as he applauded Australia’s “relentlessness” in every facet of the game.
“That dream that we came here with is now over, which is incredibly disappointing,” Stokes said post-game.
“Everyone’s obviously hurting and quite emotional about it. We got two more games and that’s where the focus needs to go now.
“We’ve came in with a goal in mind and we’ve not been able to achieve that. It hurts and sucks, but we ain’t gonna stop.”
England coach Brendon McCullum finally admitted the tourists may have got their preparation wrong, conceding his side played its best cricket in the last two days of the Adelaide Test when they bowled out Australia’s tail quickly and batted fairly sensibly.
“I’m sure plenty of questions will get asked, and rightfully so,” McCullum told the BBC.
“We haven’t got everything right, I haven’t got everything right as a coach and I put my hand up for that and accept that.
“I’ve been very strong about the conviction we’ve had in our preparation. For us it was a matter of trying to replicated what we had done in previous series, which have been successful for us away from home with our preparation.
“Maybe we didn’t quite get that right. I’ll acknowledge that. There’s no exact science but we haven’t one, so you point back to things you could have done differently.”
The Kiwi coach told TNT Sports: “They’ve outplayed us with the bat, they’ve outplayed us with the ball and they’ve outplayed us in the field.
“I do feel like the last day and a half, two days, has probably been our best cricket and that’s because we’ve just played.
“The previous nine days, we were so caught up and driven to achieve something and succeed that we’ve almost got in our own way and stymied out talent, our skill and our ability.
“It’s only been in the last two days we’ve kind of let go and just played. We’ve competed and had our best two days of the tour.”
Asked about the difference between the two teams, Stokes said: “Just the constant execution. The Australians have been able to execute on a much more consistent basis with the ball and bat and in the field.
“They’ve been able to outdo us on a higher level.
“I thought we were on for another heist when Jamie (Smith) and Will (Jacks) were playing so well, but look, we can’t do what we came here to do.”
“We’ve not been consistent or relentless enough. Our execution just hasn’t been near good enough to come to Australia and compete with these guys. I think at the moment the scoreline reflects that.
“We’ve got two more games. We’ve got so much to play for. We aren’t going to fall over and let the series play out. We’re going to give absolutely everything these last two games.”
Australia have at times been accused of playing boring, patient, percentage-based Test cricket, but Cummins proudly said that is the hallmark of his team that just keeps on winning more often that not.
“That’s when we’re at our best, this cricket team,” Cummins said after clinching the Ashes.
“You can’t really rush things here in Australia. You will it to happen but it doesn’t really work that way. Just good old fashioned grind, a lot of the time. I loved the toil from the guys today. Got a little bit closer than I would have liked, but pretty happy.”
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