An Ashes series that delivered on every promise ends in a 2-2 draw, but with enough memories, emotions and stories to last a lifetime, writes Dean Bilton.
The Australian team gathered around captain Pat Cummins in the middle of The Oval as he held the Urn aloft. Australia had retained the Ashes by way of a 2-2 series draw and were at last free to sheepishly revel in the spoils.
There's a reason these big run chases don't normally come off. Day-five pitches are hard to bat on, and the pressure of the hunt weighs heavily on the batting side. It mattered little in the end, but for a moment the Ben Stokes drop of Steve Smith looked like being the moment of the series. Stokes spilled the catch off his own thigh while trying to complete it and was aware of that fact immediately, but questionably still called for a review.
The stalemate means that so many of the big questions that swirled around the series will remain unanswered, and the era-defining objective of this Australian team will go uncompleted. Unfortunately for them, this series will go some way to summing up their whole era of Australian Test cricket — formidable at home, not quite good or adaptable enough to break through away.
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