England go to Headingley 2-0 down following a 43-run defeat to Australia at Lord's, but the drama and controversy from the second Test have given a new spark to this old rivalry; watch the third Test live on Sky Sports Cricket from 10am on Thursday (first ball from 11am)
Tuesday 4 July 2023 10:33, UK
Bodyline. Jack Ikin’s catch off Don Bradman that was not given. Dennis Lillee’s aluminium bat. Stuart Broad refusing to walk. David Warner’s altercation with Joe Root in a Birmingham bar. It would not be England against Australia without some sort of controversy.
What's that? Thought this year's men's series was going to be the friendly Ashes after the relative calm of an enthralling first Test at Edgbaston where the cricket did most of the talking, did you? Oh, you poor, sweet summer child.
Such was the drama and contention at Lord's that the second Test will one day likely have its own series of books, never mind a chapter in Ashes history.
So, while England may have emerged from it 2-0 down in the five-Test series after a 43-run defeat, the Ashes fires have been well and truly ignited heading into this week's clash at Headingley.
"It seems like every Ashes has some drama in it - even one-sided Ashes in the past, things get stoked up halfway through the series," Australia captain Pat Cummins said, reflecting on what transpired in NW8 in his post-match press conference.
"If anything, it feels like you've got two old rivals playing against each other. Is it going to change anything? I don't think it'll change anything for us.
"We're still amicable, so we'll see how it's played out. I don't feel like this series needed any more attention because there is a lot going on, but maybe there is some more."
There is always tension simmering under the surface whenever cricket's oldest Test rivals face each other, but that was ratcheted up several notches in the evening session on day four at Lord's with the hosts chasing a record 371 to win the match and square the series.
If Ben Duckett's reprieve by the third umpire after Mitchell Starc had claimed to have caught him in the deep before the ball touched the ground caused uproar though, what transpired the following morning took proceedings to a new stratosphere.
Off the last ball of the 52nd over, England's Jonny Bairstow wandered out of his crease, apparently in the belief 'over' had been called by the umpire. But quick-thinking Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey threw the ball to effect a stumping, with the umpires ultimately giving the batter out after another video review.
Were the act and Cummins' appeal within the spirit of the game? That is for others to debate. Ultimately, the decision under the Laws of Cricket was correct, which England captain Ben Stokes conceded post-match. Not that it mattered to the partisan crowd.
There was widespread booing, chants of "same old Aussies, always cheating" reverberated around Lord's as the atmosphere at the grand old Home of Cricket bordered on riotous, and the less said about the unedifying scenes in the Long Room at lunch, the better.
It is unlikely the Australians will be allowed to forget any of those incidents by the Headingley crowd when play begins in Leeds on Thursday, live on Sky Sports Cricket from 10am, but Stokes and his team-mates have experienced that on Ashes tours down under too.
"When we go to Australia, we get lambasted as well, but I think that's part of the sport we play," Stokes said.
"You get thousands of people together who want their team to win, and they'll just jump on stuff.
"It's the same thing when we go to Australia. You get 90,000 Australians at the MCG cursing at you, but it's part of it. It's part of the job."
Stuart Broad, never a man to be backwards in coming forwards, made it his intent to try to rile up the opposition when he came out to bat with Stokes too, having peppered Australia's batters while bowling as both teams engaged in short-ball warfare the like of which has not been seen since the aforementioned Bodyline series.
Despite Stokes' brilliant innings of 155, England still fell short after another epic five days of Test cricket and now face the monumental task of having to win all three remaining matches to reclaim the urn - starting with a showdown at the Leeds venue which has its own rich Ashes history.
Only Bradman's Australia team of 1937 have successfully erased a 2-0 deficit to win an Ashes series, but Stokes' captaincy has been all about rewriting the narrative and he is determined to prove more than ever there is still life in the 'Bazball' philosophy yet against the reigning world Test champions.
"We won 3-0 against New Zealand, we won 3-0 against Pakistan in Pakistan," Stokes said. "We've won three games in a row twice and all we're thinking about it winning the series 3-2.
"We have to win three games to get this urn back and we are a team who are obviously willing to put ourselves out there and do things against the narrative.
"These three games are a better opportunity for us than we've ever found ourselves in before."
Watch the crucial third Test of this summer's men's Ashes series live on Sky Sports Cricket from Thursday July 6. Coverage from Headingley starts from 10am with the first ball at 11am. Also stream this summer's men's and women's Ashes series on NOW TV.
