The Ashes series will commence from November 2025.
You hit me once, I hit you back. You give a kick, I’ll give a slap! No, these aren’t just the lyrics of a song. These lines demonstrate the fierce nature of The Ashes. The coveted rivalry is within touching distance. Australia will host England for The Ashes series in 2025, with the five-match conquest beginning in November. But when it is about something as big as The Ashes, one doesn’t need to wait till the series to start for the mind games and sledging. With three months to go for the first Test at Perth, the banter has already started.
A few days ago, former Australian opener David Warner took a dig on England’s star batter Joe Root. He started off by acknowledging that Joe Root’s wicket will be very important for the Australians to get. He further reminded the English No.4 that he is yet to score a ton on Australian soil. Moreover, he also stated that speedster Josh Hazlewood has got the better of Root on multiple occasions. The highlight of the comment came up after that. Warner stated that Root will have to take the ‘surfboard off his front-leg’ indicating that he will have to be watchful about being trapped in front.
After listening to this, the English were never going to take it lying down. Former all-rounder Moeen Ali has come up in support of his teammate against the former Australian. Ali started off by saying that what Warner said is just reflective of what the former Aussie is all about. He asserted that Warner was trying to get into Root’s head and play mind-games. But Ali is sure that he won’t succeed at those mind games.
“He’s just being Warner. He’s a bit of a clown to be honest with you. He is trying to obviously get into Rooty’s [Joe Root] head, which he won’t”, said Moeen Ali as a part of a podcast.
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For a player with a pedigree of Joe Root, it is quite surprising to not register a single hundred on Australian soil. In 14 games Down Under, the England No.4 has scored 892 runs with nine fifties. But somehow, he hasn’t been able to convert them to get to the three figure mark. As expected, the biggest challenge in front of Root for the Ashes series coming up would be to break the ice on Australian soil.
The English batter is making headlines all around the globe for his sumptuous batting. In the recently concluded Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, Root went past Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting for the most number of runs in Test cricket. He is only behind the great Sachin Tendulkar, and has amassed over 13500 runs in his Test career. Not just that. Root now holds 39 Test hundreds to his name, which is the fourth most for any batter in the world in the longest format.
The fiery series Down Under will revolve around Joe Root. With England’s bowling under some series questions, the batting unit will have to amp up the responsibility. Chris Woakes was injured on Day 1 of the fifth Test at The Oval. Though the series is three months away, there is no definite word on Woakes’ recovery timeline. England do have a gun fast bowler in Jofra Archer, but he is injury prone as well. The visitors will have to wrap their heads around the bowling plans, which might decide the fate of the series.
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