With the Ashes looming over the horizon, players and ex-players from the England and Australia sides have already started to take a dig at one another. One of the players who recently fired a shot at his opponents was England’s Zak Crawley who said that Bazball winds the Aussies up.
“Bazball really winds them up, doesn’t it?” Crawley was quoted as saying by The Times. “Which is great. If they get wound up, then that’s better for us. All that stuff after the last series, talking about ‘the moral Ashes’ after what happened with Jonny Bairstow [getting stumped by Alex Carey at Lord’s], that was just a consequence of us drawing the series. In my eyes, if they’d won, they would never have said it, so it’s a compliment that they felt the need.”
Now, former Australia player Adam Gilchrist reacted to Crawley’s Bazball claim, saying that Australia have been playing that same aggressive brand of cricket 20 years before England started adapting that style.
“We were doing it 20 years before them. It’s just the way you play cricket. No, it (Bazball) does not wind me up. It makes for compelling viewing. Bring it on,” Gilchrist was quoted saying on Kayo Sports as per EspnCricinfo.
Since winning the Ashes Down Under in 2010/11 by a 3-1 margin, England haven’t been able to come anywhere close to winning a Test in Australia. While they were whitewashed in 2013/14, they ended up losing the next two with a 4-0 margin.
Even former England bowler Stuart Broad has declared the current Australian team is the worst since the 2010-11 Ashes series which they lost 3-1 Down Under.
“It’s probably the worst Australian team since 2010 when England last won, and it’s the best English team since 2010,” Broad, told on his BBC Podcast For The Love of Cricket hosted with Jos Buttler. “It’s actually not an opinion, it’s fact. So those things match up to the fact it’s going to be a brilliant Ashes series,” Broad said.
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