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Gower: The irony of this Ashes series
Andrew Slevison • December 15th, 2025 3:00 pm
There is a real sense of irony in this Ashes series according to former England captain David Gower.
Entering the series a lot of the talk surrounded the swashbuckling English side and their fearless ‘Bazball’ approach to the game.
But the lion’s share of bold and brave cricket belongs to Australia who have won both the Perth and Brisbane Tests comprehensively to take a 2-0 series lead.
Quizzed on the style of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum’s side, former star English batsman Gower says the tourists have so far fallen short in their attempts to wield the willow.
“The irony is that Australia has played all the positive cricket in these last two games,” Gower said on SEN Mornings.
“Travis Head in Perth was the most brilliant thing I’ve seen for a long, long time. Extraordinary cricket, risk-taking, positive.
“If anyone is playing the ‘B’ word (Bazball) it was Australia and Travis Head at the end of that Perth Test match.
“In Brisbane it was Steve Smith at the end just taking it on with gay abandon.”
The maker of 8231 Test runs at 44.25 admits he’d like to see the England batting lineup put more value on their respective wickets.
If they can do that then perhaps they could make a fist of it when the third Test gets underway in Adelaide on Wednesday afternoon.
“If you said to me, ‘Go out there, take it on, play your shots and don’t worry about getting out’, I would have said, ‘Excuse me, the fun part for me is batting. The getting out bit is not the fun part’,” Gower added.
“I don’t think they’ve taken that literally but whoever you are in that batting lineup for whichever country you’re playing for, the fun part is batting, and not getting out.
“So you have to work out the exact balance between making those runs and being there to carry on making them. In simplest terms that is the art of batting.”
Much has been made of the Test strike rates of the English batters in recent times, but it’s actually the Aussies who have been on the march.
Of those who have made 80 runs or more so far this series, Travis Head (199 runs) is going at 108.7, Alex Carey (89 runs) at 93.7, Jake Weatherald (112 runs) at 81.7, while Marnus Labuschagne (128 runs) is going at 73.5 and Steve Smith (103 runs) at 70.06.
The best Englishmen are Harry Brook (98 runs) at 83.05 and Zak Crawley (120 runs) at 73.6.
The third Test between Australia and England in Adelaide begins on December 17. Listen to every ball LIVE on SEN – your home of cricket.
Catch the full chat with Gower below:
