England at last chalked up an Ashes victory on Australian soil – their first since 2010-11 – but even as the players shook hands after a two-day scrap at the MCG, nobody pretended this was a picture-perfect moment.
They got home by four wickets, chasing 175 in 32.2 overs, and trimmed the series deficit to 3-1. The pitch, however, had the final say: 34 wickets tumbled in 141.1 overs, no-one passed fifty, and both dressing-rooms left with more bruises than bragging rights.
“Yeah, we’ve got the win, but honestly, it’s not what you want, really,” Ben Stokes told TNT a few minutes after Jacob Bethell nudged the winning runs. “The conditions were heavily sided to one skill of the game, which is not ideal, and the game lasts less than two days.”
The England captain – and Joe Root, his predecessor – have toured here often enough to know how rare victories in Australia can be. They were on the wrong end of 5-0 in 2013-14 and hadn’t tasted success Down Under in 16 attempts since. That context matters, but so does the timing: the urn was already gone after defeats in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
Key moments, then rewind
• England bowled out for 110 – 42 behind – early on day two.
• Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson sliced through Australia for 132, leaving 175 to win.
• Bethell (40), Zak Crawley (37) and Ben Duckett (34) kept the chase moving at a run a ball.
• Moeen Ali lofted the winning boundary into the Members as dusk crept in.
Stokes insisted the approach never wavered. “But when you take all that away, you are confronted with conditions, and what you’ve then got to do is decide on what’s the best mode of operation to be able to give you the most chance of success. Chasing 170 was always going to be difficult, but I thought the way that we took the game on from the outset was the exact way that we needed to do that.”
Root, who finished unbeaten on 22, echoed the relief while admitting the broader picture is still unflattering. “It’s disappointing that it’s not to affect the series,” Root admitted. “But I think it’s really important, after everything that’s been thrown at the group over the last little while, for us to respond in that fashion, and to find a way on that wicket. It showed good cricket smarts, and great bravery, to read that situation and play with that conviction. So I’m very proud of the boys, and hopefully we can build on it and use the momentum into the next game.”
Off-field noise had been loud all week. Social media clips of Duckett looking bleary-eyed on a beach in Noosa prompted predictable headlines, and questions resurfaced about England’s downtime habits. Stokes, unsurprisingly, backed his players and asked for perspective. “In the few days building up to this, you front up to a few things,” he said. “The big thing for me, walking out on day one, was obviously understanding that there’s going to be 94,000 people here at the MCG … ” The rest of the sentence drifted under the stadium roar, though his point – protect the group, block out the chatter – was clear enough.
Fans who stuck it out
The Barmy Army didn’t fill their usual corner, but those who did travel finally had a win to savour. It matters, Stokes noted, that loyalty gets rewarded occasionally. The captain walked a slow lap at stumps, signing flags and shirts, acknowledging a 15-year itch scratched at last.
Pitch in the dock
As for the surface, expect frank words between Cricket Australia and the Melbourne ground staff. The ball seamed, spat and occasionally reared from a length – fine theatre, questionable balance. A Test match is scheduled for five days; two is not the business model anyone wants.
Australia, for their part, hardly complained in public. Privately, they were irked that an already dead rubber turned into a coin toss. Pat Cummins remarked in passing that “both sides bowled well”, a diplomat’s understatement after watching his top order collect single-digit bruises.
What next?
Sydney hosts the fifth Test in a week’s time. England will talk up momentum; Australia will talk about lifting again with the Ashes already secure. The home side may rotate fast bowlers, while England’s selectors face a trickier call – reward the winning XI, or spare tired bodies from more back-to-back overs in midsummer heat?
Whatever the selections, the conversation has a different tone now. England finally remembered how victory feels in Australia. They also know it should feel sweeter.
