The Big Preview: Ashes 2025/26

The wait is over. The time has come for the cricket to do the talking.

Securing an Ashes victory in Australia is England’s equivalent of scaling Everest.

Winning on the subcontinent may be technically more challenging, but this is the one series where legends are created and, just occasionally, getting up to tune in to the action in the middle of the night during the bleak British winter may be rewarded. Not since the 2010/11 iteration under the captaincy of Alistair Cook, though, has that been the case.

When Chris Tremlett bowled tailender Michael Beer at the SCG not long after the New Year’s festivities had died down, not many (other than Glenn McGrath) would have foreseen England failing to register a single victory in 15 attempts…FIFTEEN!
That is the scale of the uphill challenge that awaits current skipper, Ben Stokes, and head coach Brendon McCullum.

For the latter, his whole tenure since being appointed in May 2022, has built towards this next two months. His record of 25 wins from 41 tests is healthy and a significant improvement on what he inherited but still lacks a milestone series victory.

His adoption of an ultra-positive, ultra-aggressive approach to the game has - aside from developing its own moniker added to the English dictionary - been transformative.

Some players have been unequivocally backed (Zak Crawley) and some have been asked to move aside (James Anderson) but both with the same intended target in mind: ‘Ashes 25/26.’

There has been jousting from pundits and columnists alike which has ramped up the intensity to this series, with England fans able to attend an Ashes series Down Under for the first time since 2017/18 and hordes of visiting supporters set to descend upon host cities Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

McCullum and his touring party aren’t ones to dwell on outside noise but cannot ignore that they are the ones who have been presented with an almighty chance to take a lead due to the absence of 600 wickets from Australia’s bowling attack. Neither skipper Pat Cummins nor Josh Hazlewood will feature in the opening test on the west coast, which will be a tough one for the hosts to stomach.

It underlines an air of general uncertainty around the Australian XI as they look to assemble a side which could feature a few new faces in debutants Jake Weatherald and Brendan Doggett. A couple of low scores for either of the openers though could spell trouble and a bit of a rethink, meanwhile there are some rumblings of concerns about the form and fitness of Travis Head and Cameron Green, respectively.

There has been an awful lot made of the statistic that Green is the only member of the squad under 30 years of age. While this is true, there are certainly a great deal of experienced test quality operators who are well versed in getting results in Australia and there is an expectation that even without Cummins and Hazlewood, the hosts could have over 100 caps more than their counterparts.

So where will the series be won and lost?

All the talk coming in to this series that it would be decided by the matchup between Australia’s bowlers and England’s batters, with both respective groups more “settled in their skin.” However, with Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith in form and Jofra Archer back in the fold to spearhead England’s attack, the opposite could be true with shades of the 2019 series repeating itself.

To lose the first test would be unthinkable for England, given the circumstances and a tricky second test with the pink ball in Brisbane to come. They must bat long and attack when the time is right, in order to manage the workload of some of their fragile bowlers.

The furore surrounding Joe Root’s inability to notch a ton in Australia is a complete red herring. The reality is that the Australian’s are wary of him and respect that England's top run scorer is largely in good nick.

Smith, the stand-in skipper, is equally dangerous and will set the tone, particularly with the bat. If he racks up some big scores and helps keep the English bowlers out in the heat, it only bodes well for the green and gold.

In summary, test cricket needs England to be competitive in this series though as they have been anything but on their last three visits. They are a largely settled group with very few distractions and even fewer excuses.

It stands to reason that, after January, Stokes, Root, Archer and Mark Wood are unlikely to return here to compete for the urn. If they don’t win right here, right now, then they never will.

1^st test predicted line-ups:
Australia - Weatherald, Khawaja, Labuschagne, Smith ©, Head, Green, Carey (wk), Boland, Starc, Lyon & Doggett.
England - Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Brook, Stokes ©, Smith (wk), Atkinson, Carse, Archer & Bashir

Predicted series score: Australia 2-2 England
Predicted top run scorer: Steve Smith (AUS)
Predicted top wicket taker: Nathan Lyon (AUS)