Australia walked into the first Ashes 2023 encounter high on confidence after beating India by 209 runs to win World Test Championship (WTC) final. Less than a week later, as Australia skipper Pat Cummins bowled the first ball of the series, he was welcomed with a boundary by Zak Crawley. Cummins bowled the typical Test match delivery taking the ball away from the batter with slip cordon ready for anything that comes their way but Crawley slashed it hard through covers for a boundary.
The English opener made a statement as the crowd at Edgbaston, Birmingham went bonkers. The commentary box was surprised as well as they expected an attacking display but not straightaway.
England skipper Ben Stokes did not expect Crawley to throw the kitchen sink at the first delivery either as his jaw dropped like thousands of others in the stadium and the ones watching on the TV or their smartphones.
Interestingly, it wasn’t the case the last time England toured Australia for the Ashes 2021. Mitchell Starc opened the bowling for the hosts. Rory Burns played down the wrong line and got bowled for a golden duck. England ended up losing the Ashes 2021 4-0. They barely avoided clean sweep under Joe Root’s captaincy.
“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,” Stokes had said after winning the toss and opting to bat first.
“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 at the toss.
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