Ashes 2019 | Winners and Losers ft. Justin Langer, Barmy Army and Moeen Ali
The Aussies and the English might have walked out as outright winners and losers on the field in the Edgbaston Test, but in Cricket, as it's always the case, there is more than one winner and loser - both on and off the field. Here, at SportsCafe, we've compiled a list from the first Test.
Winners
Justin Langer
Justin Langer kept the playing XI of Australia secret till the very moment of the toss, and once it was announced, people had already loaded by their bullets, ready to fire shots at the Australian coach, thanks to his decision to leave Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood from the playing XI. But five days and 380 overs later, he stands tall and unarmed, in the open, but this time around, with no weapons pointed at him. It turns out that he indeed knew exactly what he was doing, as his picks - James Pattinson and Peter Siddle - turned out to be the perfect foil to help Nathan Lyon win them the game on a rather flattish deck. I guess from this very moment, we can just say “Keep calm and trust Langer”.
Chris Woakes
He is not a Jofra Archer who will provide you the “x-factor”, he is not a Jimmy Anderson who can viciously swing the ball both ways, nor is he a Mark Wood who will give you express pace, but Chris Woakes is exactly what he is - an epitome of consistency. After Anderson was ruled out after just four overs, the right-armer tormented the Aussies with his consistency in the first innings, teaming up with Stuart Broad to reduce them to 122-8.
To add to this, he proved his prowess with the bat, too - he existed Edgbaston as the only English batsman to score 30 or more in both the innings - maybe he can call himself the best all-rounder in the team now, perhaps?
And finally, to cap it off, he did the impossible, which was to take the wicket of Steve Smith. While his teammates walked off the ground in shame, Woakes ensured with his performance, that he left the ground with his head held high, setting sights on the second Test at Lord’s, where he averages an absurd 9.8 with the ball.
Test Cricket (Not you, England)
Ashes Cricket returned to Edgbaston for the first time since 2005, and while the first Test was nowhere close to the drama that the 2005 one produced, it did end up giving the audience a very complete, compact, see-saw battle which saw the better team prevailing at the end. In this day and age, where there have been extended talks about four-day and day/night Tests, Edgbaston gave us a timely reminder of why we love the longest format of the game more than anything else. To put things into perspective, none of England’s last four Tests prior to Edgbaston lasted more than four days.
But saying that, England will definitely be disappointed with the surface. With the pitch behaving somewhere between an Australian and a sub-continent surface, it instantly neutralized England’s biggest weapon - swing - while bringing Australia’s biggest weapon - Nathan Lyon, into the game, and the latter emerged as the uncontested winner.
Losers
The Barmy Army
When David Warner and Cameron Bancroft entered the ground, there was a sea of sandpaper being waved around, songs, chants, and boos louder than one could ever imagine. The hostile atmosphere was expected, and when Smith walked into bat post the early dismissal of the duo, a completely new dimension was added, as people pulled out masks of Smith crying.
At the end of the match, it did seem like it was indeed a good decision by the English fans to spot the Smith masks, as even if it didn’t help them in intimidating the man, it did end up helping them out in hiding their tears post the conclusion of the match. It was almost as if the former skipper had been waiting and preparing for this very moment in the last 16 months, as he unleashed the “Boomerang effect” on the Barmy Army - whatever they threw at him, he rifled it back at them, in the form of runs.
The ball will be on the Barmy Army’s court on August 14th at Lord’s, they may or may not boo Smith, and while they still do not know what will happen if they do the former, they definitely know what’ll come their way if they choose to do the latter.
Marnus Labuschagne
He arrived in England months ahead of the Ashes, he played for Glamorgan, he scored five hundreds and became the first batsman to score more than 1000 runs in 2019 County season, he top-scored in the first innings of the “All-Aussie” warmup game, adding an extra dimension to the team with his leg-spin and looked certain to feature in the Edgbaston Test.
But he was left out of the starting XI in favour of Matthew Wade and Travis Head, and while the former scored a match-winning century in the second innings, the latter stitched match-defining partnerships with Smith, and while both contributions pushed Australia closer to victory in the match, it also ended up pushing a certain Queeslander far away from the team, and sadly enough for the all-rounder, it all but looks like he’ll be carrying drinks for the rest of the series, unless something dramatic happens.
Moeen Ali
Here’s a stat for you - In Ashes encounters since the start of 2017, Moeen Ali averages 93 with the ball and 16 with the bat. Had the numbers been the other way around, he would have been hailed the greatest all-rounder to have ever played the game, but unfortunately, he is now staring at the exit door, with Jack Leach waiting to take his place.
The Ashes seems to be a never-ending nightmare for the 32-year-old, who can’t seem to get to see the back of Smith while he’s bowling, and always gets Lyon to see the back of him while he’s batting. Cricket is indeed a cruel game, and to see a bowler who had taken 47 Test wickets in the last two years prior to the start of the series get unceremoniously whacked just proves what psychological fear can do to a player.
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