In a game that ebbed and flowed throughout the course of five days, Australia ended up neutralising 'Bazball' at Edgbaston. On a thrilling Day 5 that was packed with pulsating action, the Three Lions were in ascendancy to steal a close win before the Baggy Greens' skipper Pat Cummins batted out of his skin to take his team to the promised land. England captain Ben Stokes did all in his power to earn a positive result but it just wasn't to be for England.
Despite the defeat, the Three Lions' coach Brendon McCullum underlines that the players are proud of their performance at Edgbaston and confirmed that the team will go at Australia even harder at Lord's.
"I'm sure they'll stick to that strategy, which is great, because we'll go a little harder. The way that we played validated our style of play. If we'd have got a little bit of the rub of the green then we might have been on the other side of it," McCullum told BBC Sport.
"The guys are proud of the efforts that they put in and I'm sure we'll go to Lord's with a lot of confidence. We always want to try to take the game forward. We want to try to seize opportunities where we think we can put opposition teams under pressure," McCullum added.
Cummins and tailender Nathan Lyon became the immovable force of defiance at Edgbaston on June 20. The duo stitched an unbeaten 55-run alliance for the ninth wicket to roll out the Baggy Greens' road to an exhilarating victory on Day 5 of the first Ashes Test.
There were many heroes in the Baggy Greens' spectacular win. Charismatic Cummins played a match-winning knock of 44 not out after picking four wickets with the ball in the second innings. Lyon and Scott Boland blunted the English bowlers' seam, swing and spin like true pros and, Usman Khawaja held Australia's innings together both in the first and second innings of the match.
The left-handed batter played an outstanding innings of 141 runs in the first innings and contributed 65 runs in the second innings. In both instances, Khawaja became the pivot around whom the Australian batting line-up revolved.
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