AUS vs ENG: The Ashes 2025/26 Review
The Ashes 2025/26 has successfully concluded on January 08, 2025. Hosts, Australia, won the series 4-1. This is Australia’s 35th Ashes series victory. Last time, England won the Ashes series in 2015, when they were hosts. Following that, Australia hasn’t lost any Ashes series so far. In the recently held series, Australia won the test matches at Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney, while the visitors, England, clinched the only victory of the tour in the Melbourne test.During the series, Australia showed why they are called the No. 1 test team in the ICC test rankings. They vanquished the England side in two matches (first and 3rd test) in just under 2 days.
Australia’s veteran batter and newly appointed test opener, Travis Head, thrashed the English bowling attack simultaneously. He scored 629 runs in 10 innings, including 3 centuries, with an incredible strike rate of 87.36. During the series, he looked completely different from other Australian batters. This can be gauged from the fact that after him, Alex Carey scored the most runs for Australia, whose cricket score is 323. In the bowling department, Mitchell Starc became unplayable for English batters during the series, especially in the first 3 matches. He took 31 wickets throughout the series and didn't give any chance to English batters. Following him, Scott Boland took 20 wickets and became 3rd leading wicket-taker of the series.
Australia’s dominance can be gauged from the fact that they were playing without their two premium fast bowlers, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins. Josh Hazlewood missed the entire series, while Pat Cummins was featured only in the 3rd test. Apart from these two veteran pacers, Nathan Lyon also missed out on a couple of matches due to injury.
Well, at the end of the series, Australia’s veteran opener batter Usman Khawaja, took his international retirement. In the last series of his international career, he scored 176 runs in 7 innings throughout the series.
On the other hand, the England team was only struggling throughout the Ashes 2025/26 series. For them, Joe Root was the highest scorer, scoring 400 runs, including 2 centuries. While Brydon Carse took 22 wickets. Their ace pacer Jofra Archer took 9 wickets in 3 matches. After losing the first three games, Archer was ruled out of the series.
Well, in this series, the Australian side displayed pure dominance and didn’t allow any chance to the England side for a comeback. The next Ashes is likely to be played in June - August 2027 in England.