Cast your mind back two months to George Bailey naming Australia’s squad for the first Test of the Ashes in the conference room of a Gold Coast hotel.
Even with the absence of captain Pat Cummins, the squad is a familiar roll call. Smith? Present. Starc? Here. Hazlewood? Yep (for now). Head, Lyon, Khawaja, they’re all there. The usuals -well, Weatherald is a new one. And so is Doggett – but he won’t be needed with Boland, right? Plus Cummins will be back soon. No room for you, Neser.
Bar Hazlewood, the players who milled about on the sun-kissed Sydney Cricket Ground celebrating Australia’s fourth win of an emphatic campaign on Thursday afternoon were largely the same ones Bailey had read out in November.
But that picture fails to tell the story of an extraordinary summer of player turnover, batting order changes, new and unusual bowling and fielding tactics, and some major injuries.
“I think the most pleasing thing about it was it wasn’t a normal series,” Marnus Labuschagne told Fox Cricket. “We won this Ashes a different way.”
Australia’s comeback from a series of setbacks leading into, and then during, Perth’s series opener would prove emblematic of the resilience they needed to show over the coming weeks.
Days after the Aussies named him in their 15-man group, Hazlewood was ruled out of the opening Test in what would prove a series-ending hamstring injury. Sean Abbott, who had won selection over Michael Neser, suffered the same fate. With Cummins’ return date up in the air, Australia were three fast bowlers down before a ball was bowled.
Their English counterparts then threw down the gauntlet. The hosts were rolled for 132 after a ferocious display of high-speed bowling. Within hours on day two, Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope took the visitors lead past 100 for the loss of a solitary wicket.
The Test was veering towards a similar script to the one from a year prior when India turned the tables on them at the same venue.
But the wisdom of a team derided in some quarters for its advancing years – just one of those names Bailey had read out was yet to turn 30 – would show to be its greatest quality.
“Even when things aren’t going the way we plan them, or are perhaps not in our favour, we’re very quick to move on from that, be very calm and problem solve or adjust on the go,” said Mitchell Starc. “You guys may have written that England had the upper hand, but as a changeroom, (we felt) the game was very much in the balance.”
Australia stumbled into a masterstroke. Usman Khawaja’s faltering back left him unable to open for the second time in the match. Marnus Labuschagne had partnered Weatherald on day one, but Australia’s brains trust had disliked the combination of a rookie opener still finding his way with a just-recalled Labuschagne. Nor was exposing Smith at first drop ideal.
“We were tossing and turning between Nathan Lyon coming out to bat and Travis Head – and thankfully, we went the right way,” Smith said to laughter.
So began one of the great individual series in Ashes history, better even than his 2021-22 campaign that earnt him the Compton-Miller Medal. His 629 runs contained tons in Perth, Adelaide and Sydney, and allowed Australia to fight fire with fire after Jofra Archer, Mark Wood and co. had torched them on the opening day of the series.
Head’s bruising efforts and laidback demeanour has had a cascading effect on this Australian side, for which he has become a spirit animal. Not only did he settle his former Adelaide schoolboy foe, Weatherald, to see the pair record four fifty-plus partnerships in five Tests (as many as Australia had had through their previous 16), he also literally butchered the new ball into a more docile state.
“He just puts you right under the pump. If you miss, it’s going to the fence,” said Smith. “With the new ball as well, it helps guys batting behind him – it softens that ball up definitely when he’s hitting it as hard as he is.
“Trav’s been much phenomenal and I’d say he’s pretty much locked away at the top, I would imagine.”
Yet even as Starc put Australia’s attack on his shoulders with a 10-wicket haul in Perth, Australia were in unknown territory with their bowling attack.
Scott Boland turned the match on day two in Perth, but had never played more than three Tests in a series. Brendan Doggett remained an unknown quantity, while Nathan Lyon bowled just two overs. Even Michael Neser himself doubted whether the hamstring he damaged last summer would hold up to Test cricket again.
Brendon McCullum had previously spoken about ‘running towards danger’ but it was Australia who made the bolder selection calls from thereon.
Where the visitors were cautious in deepening their batting for the pink-ball Test in Brisbane, replacing the injured Mark Wood with batting allrounder Will Jacks, Bailey’s panel dropped their most seasoned wicket taker in Lyon. Where England stuck with their fastest bowlers until they all fell over, Australia picked two seamers who Alex Carey could keep up to.
In the absence of a spinner at the Gabba, Neser had a series of stunning Carey bits of glovework to thank for his third-innings five-for. The South Australian’s impeccable work behind the stumps to spin on Test tours of India and Sri Lanka meant Smith was not entirely surprised.
“The keeping up to the stumps was an absolute masterclass throughout the series,” Australia’s fill-in skipper said of their stumper who added 323 runs at 46.14 for the series.
“To be able to go up to the stumps to guys bowling late 130s (kph) and barely drop a ball, both offside and leg side. It was incredible. Against this opposition, it was more about just keeping the pressure on them. They like to get out at those guys and try and take lbw out of play.
“For him to be able to get up to the stumps as much as he did, and keep them back in their crease, it created a load of chances for us. I haven’t seen a keeping performance like that. It was honestly incredible.”
Cummins and Lyon combined for more than half of Australia’s wickets in Adelaide to give their series-clinching triumph in Adelaide a more familiar feeling. It would prove to be that pair’s final involvement in the series.
The recall of Jhye Richardson in the Melbourne defeat meant Australia had cycled through six frontline fast bowlers in four Tests. Through their previous 31 Tests, they had used just four.
Boland, who apparently held no fear for England according to one of their former captains, outlasted all of his counterparts. His tally of 159.5 overs (yielding him 20 wickets at 24.95) was the greatest of any bowler this summer. Neser, not deemed in Australia’s top five quicks at series outset, snared 15 victims at 19.93.
Only Starc topped them, finishing with 31 scalps at 19.93 along with 156 runs at 26. Mitchell Johnson’s 2013-14 campaign (37 wickets, 165 runs) and Shane Warne’s 2005 epic (40 wickets, 249 runs) are the only comparable all-round Ashes efforts this century.
It was little wonder Starc’s teammates were calling him ‘Beefy’, a reference to Ian Botham’s epic Ashes-winning campaigns through the 1980s, by the end of the series.
“(Starc) has been incredible. He’s led the attack in all five games, and him and Scotty playing all five games was a huge effort. They only had Brydon Carse playing every game, everyone else went down,” said Smith, noting the injuries to Archer and Gus Atkinson along with Wood.
“It’s a tricky place to bowl fast. The amount of force these guys put through their bodies on these wickets is outrageous and to be able to come out and play five Tests the way (they) did … was incredible.”
When Beau Webster, Richardson’s replacement in Sydney, took three vital fourth-day wickets in the series finale, he became Australia’s 10th different individual wicket taker for the series. The hosts (and their opponents) were undoubtedly caught short by failing to pick a frontline spinner, but Webster’s late-game runs (from No.9) and wickets (with his off-breaks) were yet another deviation from the ordinary.
As Australia sung their team song late on Thursday evening, circled around the ‘Thanks Uzzie’ painted on the SCG outfield, Smith, Starc, Bailey and co. might have looked around and realised they would never quite do it like this again.
2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men’s Ashes
First Test: Australia won by eight wickets
Second Test: Australia won by eight wickets
Third Test: Australia won by 82 runs
Fourth Test: England won by four wickets
Fifth Test: Australia won by five wickets
Australia squad (fifth Test): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster
England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Matthew Fisher, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue
