The series Anderson-Tendulkar trophy came to a thrilling close on Monday after Gus Atkinson’s stumps were cleaned up by Mohammed Siraj. It was one of the exhilarating five-match Test series in recent times. Many former players and Pundits compared it with the 2005 Ashes, which is touted as one of the greatest Test series in the modern era. However, former Indian cricketer R Ashwin said this one is better than the 20025 England-Australia showdown.
“A lot of people are comparing this series with the 2005 Ashes, but I think this series was slightly better than even the 2005 Ashes – because there was so much more imperfection, from both sides,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel, Ash ki Baat.
“If you look at that Australian team, there was Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, you had Michael Kasprowicz, Shaun Tait. From this side [England] you had Simon Jones, Steve Harmison, you had Ashley Giles. There was a lot of experience in the bowling attacks. There was experience in the batting too. There was a lot of hard-fought cricket, where you couldn’t see a lot of mistakes. It was hard-fought.”
Imperfections
While Ashwin did acknowledge this as a good series, he also mentioned it was an imperfect series. “In this series, there were a lot of mistakes,” Ashwin added. “But the young players have corrected their mistakes and gotten better through the series. You had somebody like KL Rahul who’s not put a foot wrong in the series. Then you had somebody like a Rishabh Pant or Shubman Gill, who made errors – both got run out once – they played some poor shots and got out at the crucial moments.
“In the bowling too, Mohammed Siraj has had some down spells, Prasidh [Krishna] has had some ordinary spells. England have bowled poorly, but have fought back through Ben Stokes. So there has been a lot of imperfection. There was a lot of perfection in the 2005 Ashes, but we got to see a lot of imperfection in this series,” Ashwin added.
“And that’s the beauty of it. Players corrected their vulnerabilities, and made this series like a festival for us. [For] anyone who paid money to go watch the match, no one would say they didn’t have their money’s worth. Twenty-five days of riveting cricket, and I could give anything to watch this series, I have not missed a moment.”
