Sky Sports Cricket Podcast
The Ashes Review: Australia seal 4-1 win as England vow to evolve and change
08 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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What a start that is from Crawley. Chris Wokes nails it for four. The Ash is alive. And Test cricket alive. Ice in his veins. Pat Cummins has led his team to a famous victory. He gets his fairytale ending. England's captain, Ben Stokes, well, he is there.
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Chapter 2: What were the highlights of the final Test match in the 2025/26 Ashes?
So I thought it had to be Kars and Tong. Spin?
If you had a frontline spinner.
Well, if you had a frontline spinner, then different with two left handers. If you've got a good off spinner, then you might have gone with a spinner. But I don't think you could give it to Jacks or Root, really, with the new ball. So I thought they got it right with the new ball combination. And Kars actually tried to get it much fuller than he had been throughout the new ball.
It's 62 for none there. There was no real sign of the wobble to come, but there was a bit of a nervy wobble after that.
And it was a bit farcical at times. Some of the running between the wickets. I mean, even I was stood up going, what are they doing? That's my running between the wickets. Cameron Green and Alex Carey looked like they've never met before at a cricket ground. It was farcical at times. And you just never know with Cameron Green when he strolled.
He doesn't feel like a man for a crisis and they were in a mini crisis at that stage and fair play to him. He played pretty well. One thing I want to ask you, you've been on various Ashes tours out here and you were very critical last time about the way England ended with a whimper and batters backing away and just giving up basically. At least they showed some fight here today.
Absolutely. And that goes back to a little bit the point about Stokes. You know, it would have been perhaps easy for him to sit in the dressing room today with an abductor injury. He can't bowl, but he was out there and standing at slip and he managed to drive a respectable performance at the end. I mean, you know,
For all that you might be critical about Brydon Carse's skill and accuracy at times this series, you cannot fault his heart and his spirit. And I thought that was a pretty decent effort from England today. Albeit, in a way, the last two or three hours, I thought, summed up the series. There were drop catches, one that flew between the keeper and Stokes off Will Jacks from Khawaja.
And then Labashain was dropped at Gully, a catch that Bethel should have taken. I think he's an excellent fielder. So two catches that went down. And a snicker.
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Chapter 3: How did Australia secure their 4-1 series victory over England?
I think the new ball bowling, well, all facets of the game really. The new ball bowling, the difference in new ball bowling was just incredibly different. My one biding memory of this Ashes is going to be Travis Head. Cutting the ball. Cutting the ball and pulling the ball. And that just tells you where England are bowling.
And then the next one will be the shots when England have got into good positions and where they need to be ruthless. You look at the two best players. In fact, the three, two greats. and a young, classy player. You look at the way those three played in Smith, Root and Bethel, and they got the tempo of batting.
It's not about blocking, tempo of batting, ruthless over my dead body, but not just going to block and be boring. Why can't the rest of them sort of see that? Why can't Jamie Smith see that and see that situation when Labuschagne comes on
before lunch it's those moments where you look you're not you need to look ahead you need to look ahead now and you're in that dressing room and then think if only in that moment i had the root smith bethel ruthlessness not today labashane you're not going to be get me out i'm going to be there for the new ball you might get 450 they might be chasing 220 today you might win a test match
In every Test match and in every Test series, there are always what-if moments. And of course, they're irrelevant in the end because it's what you do in the moment that counts. I think the difference with this series has been the magnitude of the errors that England have made. And you touched on the two dismissals in this game of Jamie Smith and Will Jacks.
And there is the difference in having that extra 100, 120 runs to play with. And I think that is the problem for England now when they look back at this series. I don't think there's any worse thing for an athlete to feel you didn't give yourself the best chance of succeeding, whether it's through preparation or in the way that you've played.
you know we played against we got heavily beaten marmalized usually by australia but we played against you know that australia side that you lost to in 0-2-3 is a genuinely great side and i think what will haunt england in this series is that they've just not given themselves the very best chance to be at their best and that is the hard thing for an athlete to deal with it's the kind of thing that will haunt them i think in years to come anyway you
And sorry, interrupt.
And against an Australian side that were missing some serious cricketers. That's my point.
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Chapter 4: What were the critical moments that shaped the Ashes series?
Catching again probably let us down too so We've been good for a lot of the series, and then we've been pretty poor for the key moments as well. So a real missed opportunity, Ness. You didn't mention the batting there much. Do you feel 380-odd on that first innings pitch was enough? I thought it was an okay score. I didn't think it was a horrific score.
It obviously wasn't above par, but I thought it was a decent score if we had been able to be a little bit more impactful when we had the opportunity with ball in hand, especially that first night when we had the new ball and we obviously had favourable conditions with the lights on, there was overcast conditions.
We just got knocked off our length again by Travis Head and we weren't quite able to get that control back, but No, I think from a batting point of view, we actually weren't too bad. I know there's a couple of shots where the guys will clearly be disappointed with. If they had their opportunity again, they'd probably change. But that's what Test cricket and the biggest occasions can do, right?
Let's talk about it throughout the series now. And you mentioned the batting there. The director of cricket, Rob Key, said at times you've played dumb shots. How do you react when you see some of the shots that Harry Brooks played? Some of the shots, Jamie Smith here, Will Jacks here. How do you react as a coach? What are you saying to him after those shots?
I think... For a start, Harry Brook, he averages 55 in Test cricket. 55. And he plays the same way every time. He's a generational talent. He's got a very aggressive game. He knocks bowlers off their lengths. He negates the amount of good balls that opposition can bowl. And I think there's a slight misconception because of how he gets out that his output's not significant. 55 is world class.
I think we just need to continue to for him he's still 26 years of age he's got his best years in front of him and he's had a hell of a start to his test career and he's unique in how he goes about it clearly the shots that Jamie and Will played I'm not going to What we say in the dressing room can be very different to what we say in the public.
But there is moments which sometimes the pressure can ramp up and you can get out in certain ways. But you can also get out defending a ball when the most courageous thing is actually trying to negate the very ball which you think. But because it's an acceptable way to get out, People let that one slide, but once you're out, you're out, right?
But there's a perception out there that the culture, there is no accountability. You can average 30, stay in the side. You can get out however you want. Are you telling us there is accountability within this side? If you keep getting out the same way, if you keep playing dumb shots, someone will pull you up on it?
Yeah, of course not. So what we say externally and what we say within the dressing room can be very different, right? It's... It's a matter of, these guys are, if we look at the average age, we look at the average amount of games that our team's played, you take Joe Root and Ben Stokes out of it, and we're still quite a young side.
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Chapter 5: How did the players' performances impact the series outcome?
And even if you won 5-0, there's still areas of evolution and progress which you would look to take on board. So the thing I'm... From my point of view, it's not about ripping our script up completely.
From when we took over to where we are now, we're a better cricket team, we've had more success, and we need to just make sure that we keep progressing, keep evolving to become a better cricket side over the next couple of years.
Can you personally evolve and change, or is it the Brandon McCullum philosophy? or are you constantly evolving and changing? There's talk of a bit of tinkering and maybe another voice in that dressing room, an assistant coach. Can you change your ways or is this the way you're going to play?
I sort of take offence to that to be honest. I have conviction in my methods but I'm not rigid in my beliefs. When you're in the chair of being in charge of a team and not just the players but sports staff and management etc, you need to be very convinced in how you're going to lead the side. It doesn't mean that you're
You're blind to progress and you're blind to evolution, but you have to have conviction in what you believe in. And I have conviction in my methods. It doesn't mean I'm not rigid in the belief that I think we can continue to grow and progress.
But to throw out everything that's worked and to throw out what we've been able to achieve over the last little while in pursuit of something that is completely unknown doesn't make any sense.
Did you stick to that conviction in this series? Because at times the captain... was playing in a slightly different way. He looked like, over my dead body, called for a bit more fight and a bit more character. Australia is not a place for weak men. People signal that as to, come on, let's grind it out. And he tried to. Do you think you were both on the same page throughout this series?
Yeah, we're always on the same page. Stokes and I have become good friends, obviously, and good colleagues as well, and we have robust conversations. It doesn't mean we agree with one another all the time, but we commit to whatever we decide. We have those conversations, we debate the points, and then whatever we decide, we then support the other one in those decisions.
The thing is that nothing's...
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