Is Australia retaining the Ashes a surprise?

To me no. I always thought they would as they have a stronger squad of players. Yes, England have some outstanding cricketers but not as many as the Aussies; they are the current Test World Champions for a reason.

For my money it has been a mistake to have Bairstow as the England wicket keeper as he’s clearly not the best keeper that England can call upon. Ben Foakes is the best and he should be the England’s keeper, end of. If Bairstow plays it should be for his batting ability.

I’m no fan of England’s Kiwi-born Captain but he’s clearly doing a better job than Root who was only really captain as no one else could be found to do the job. Making your most able player captain has never been the way to get the best from whoever the best player is, nor indeed for the team as a whole.

Having said that I expected the Aussies to retain the Ashes, I also have to say that Cummins, to me, does not look to be a leader/captain and I would suggest that he is the Aussie’s Root i.e. a top player who should not be their leader.

There’s no doubt that ‘Baz Ball’ has made for more exciting cricket and Test Cricket needed it, but at the end of the day the team with the best players should, in most cases, be the winner and so it has proved. The fact that the first 4 Tests of 5 this match series have looked so close is probably because the Aussies need a better captain and the unfortunate loss of Nathan Lyon to injury. Without those two problems I feel the Aussies would probably have won more easily.