It wasn't an exaggeration when Virat Kohli termed Steve Smith, the best Test player of this generation right ahead of the World Test Championship (WTC) final. And couple of days after Kohli's praise, Smith lived up to the statement and walloped a cracking century in Australia's second innings which proved instrumental in team's resounding win over India in the WTC final. Smith went on to belt 121 runs to help Australia post a colossal total of 469 as Indian batters crashed in front of such big score and were tumbled to 296. Later India were handed a 444-run target which they failed to achieve, hence lost the match by 209 runs.
Australia clinched their maiden WTC title and became the first team to win all ICC trophies. But right before of the Ashes kicked off on Friday (June 16), Smith came out with a bold statement and made his priorities straight between WTC title and Ashes.
Smith, in an interview with ABC News said that winning WTC was a proud moment but Ashes is still the pinnacle.
“We had a great last week winning the Test championship. It was two years of hard work that went into it. It was a really proud moment for all the boys but yeah, the Ashes, for Australia and England cricketers, is the pinnacle. We work for it throughout our life, so it's going to be exciting,” Smith said.
“Just the history of it. Australia and England, it's the biggest series. It's the one who want to do really well in, and hope your team has success. The way England have been in playing, the way we have been playing, it's going to be exciting series. The boys can't wait to get into it,” Smith added.
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The first match of the Ashes 2023 series is being played at Edgbaston. Meanwhile in the series opener Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to bat first.
Meanwhile in the series opener, Pat Cummins in a surprising move dropped his pace spearhead Mitchell Starc from Australia's playing XI and picked Josh Hazlewood instead in the high-voltage drama.
“We'd have batted as well. One change, Mitch Starc out, Hazlewood comes in. Tough call, Starc was really good last game but good to have someone like Hazlewood come in. Tough to manage the workloads, we'll assess things week by week, but that is a good problem to have. Good preparation to win the WTC final, we went into that fresh, we feel well suited and we are now eager to go. England will come at us, but that's okay,” Cummins said after the toss.
Meanwhile England captain said,“We'll bat first. Looks a great cricket wicket. Good toss to win. Very proud to be here with all the hype around, very special moment for me and the team. It has been tough at times with the energy, but that has been something we are good at in the past. Happy to have Mo back, unfortunate injury to Leachy. I've seen Mo produce some great performances in the past, we know what he can bring to the team”.
Australia's Playing XI: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Scott Boland.
England's Playing XI: Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes(c), Jonny Bairstow(w), Moeen Ali, Stuart Broad, Ollie Robinson, James Anderson.
Head-to-Head records
So far 72 Ashes series have been played between the nation where Australia have clinched 34 of them while England have bagged 32 series and six series have been drawn. Both teams have locked horns with each other 356 times in Ashes with England emerging victorious on 110 occasions while Australia have won 150 matches with 96 encounters ended up in a draw.
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