The Ashes 2025-26: The story of Australia's thrashing of England in 14 pictures
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Nick Miller
Australia's victory was a formality, with the urn retained in 11 days' cricket, but the series still provided plenty of memorable highlights
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A little over seven weeks after it all began, the Ashes are over.
Actually, the Ashes were technically over in mid-December when Australia took an unassailable 3-0 lead after only 11 days’ cricket, but the series is now done. The home side won 4-1 and England — who arrived with no little hope and plenty of bravado — will slink home disappointed and defeated.
Has it been a good series? Not really. It’s been uncompetitive, but the difference from previous one-sided editions of the Ashes is that this time, the dominant side haven’t actually been that good, relying on a limited number of key, stellar performers. They capitalised ruthlessly on England’s oscillation between bad and self-destructive cricket. Sometimes they managed both of those at the same time.
But the contest did produce some moments of drama, intrigue and downright shambles. So here is the story of the 2025-26 Ashes, as told through images of its key moments.
Lions against Pussycats at Lilac Hill
Was England’s tour doomed from the start? Preparation time for tours like this is limited by the frantic international calendar, but England elected to limit their plans to what was essentially an intra-squad game against the England Lions at Lilac Hill before the first Test in Perth.
It wasn’t so much the ‘opposition’ that was the problem, more the venue: those who know say that the Lilac Hill pitch is slow and low — unideal preparation for the track at the Optus Stadium.
Ollie Pope unleashes his new, composed batting style for the Ashes while playing against the Lions at picturesque Lilac Hill (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
Quite why they didn’t book a game at the WACA, the old home of Test cricket in Perth and a much more comparable venue, has not been properly explained. The fact that they did manage to book their mid-series break in the coastal resort of Noosa, a full year in advance, doesn’t look great by comparison.
Khawaja’s back spasm paves the way for Head’s rampage
When opener Usman Khawaja’s back spasmed again on the second day of the first Test and Australia required a replacement, Travis Head put his hand up to move from the middle order, airily declaring that it “can’t be that hard”.
And it turned out not to be. Set a potentially ticklish 205 to win, Head launched into the England attack, scoring a sensational 123 off 83 balls to ensure that Australia won before stumps on the second day.
Travis Head smashes another boundary on the way to a breathless 123 (Philip Brown/Getty Images)
Head stayed at the top of the order for the remainder of the series, scored two more centuries and finished with 629 runs — nearly double Australia’s next highest scorer — at an average of 62.90 and a strike rate of 87.36 per 100 balls. It puts him in 18th in the list of most runs scored in a single Ashes series.
Not bad for someone just filling in.
Starc in full flight
If, at the start of the series, you had said Josh Hazelwood wouldn’t play a single Test, Pat Cummins just one and Nathan Lyon two (but bowl just 55 overs), then you might have wondered how Australia would take 20 wickets in any games.
His 7-58 in the first innings of the first Test set the tone, but arguably more remarkable than the statistics is his durability. Starc will be 36 in a few weeks, but he was bowling with just as much purpose in the fifth Test as the first, as his ‘Big Four’ colleagues were felled with assorted ailments.
He finished on 31 wickets at 19.93, by some distance the best in the series on either team. He didn’t quite carry the Australian attack on his own, but would they have even won, let alone been so dominant, without him?
Root’s century in Brisbane
A few months before the Ashes, Joe Root spoke to a group of journalists, ostensibly to promote the Hundred. The first question was about his record in Australia, the only Test-playing country in which he had hitherto not scored a century.
His eyes glazed over, a man who knew the question was coming but hoped it wouldn’t — but also a man who knew this series might be his last chance to stop it from being asked again in future.
Joe Root acknowledges the England dressing room after reaching his first Test century in Australia (Philip Brown/Getty Images)
His 138 not out under the floodlights in Brisbane was a moment of huge catharsis, betraying that, although he had said all the right things about it not being a big deal, he was relieved to get this monkey off his back.
His legacy was already secure among anyone sensible: after this, even the not-so-sensible can’t deny his greatness either. For good measure, he rounded it off with a red ball 160 in Sydney. He’s just 1,978 runs behind Sachin Tendulkar now…
Archer’s champion spell in Brisbane
People get very weird about Jofra Archer.
When he started bowling quickly and chirping at Steve Smith on the final evening of the Brisbane Test, Ricky Ponting delivered that most withering of Australian insults — “champ” — about his efforts.
“Jofra’s finally come to life, six days into the series, when the Test is gone… too late for that, champ,” offered the former Australia captain on Channel Seven’s coverage, later calling Archer “embarrassing”.
Jofra Archer and Steve Smith clash at the Gabba (Philip Brown/Getty Images)
Ponting’s beef seemed to be that Archer was bowling quicker in this short, final session than in the first innings, but surely that approach is logical: you’re more likely to really let it rip if you know you’re only going to bowl a few overs, rather than pacing yourself over what could be five days of tough Test cricket.
Ponting was also furious that Archer had brought a pillow with him to the ground, speaking to an attitude that men should be hard and tough and, I dunno, sleep on jagged rocks or something. Perhaps Archer could have bowled better in his three Tests but… well, people get very weird about Jofra Archer.
Alex Carey’s celebration in Adelaide
Head, Starc and Root may say otherwise, but you could argue that the best performer of this series was Alex Carey, wicketkeeper.
He was flawless behind the stumps, routinely standing up to Scott Boland and Michael Neser — not express quicks, but not exactly medium-pacers either.
Alex Carey raises his bat and looks to the heavens in memory of his father after reaching his hundred in Adelaide (Robbie Stephenson/PA Images via Getty Images)
But his standout moment came with the bat in Adelaide. He was thrust up the order a position higher than normal and scored a brilliant 106 to essentially save the Australian innings, given they were 94-4 when he came in.
“I guess you know as well why I was looking to the heavens,” he said afterwards of his celebration upon reaching his century, referencing his late father, who had passed away in September. “I’m trying not to tear up.”
He wasn’t the only one.
A Snicko shambles
It takes something remarkable to unite the English and Australian cricket communities, but a mutual distrust of ‘Real Time Snicko’, the technology used to determine if a batter has hit a ball, is one of them.
It is pretty extraordinary that the host broadcasters decide which brand of technology to use for pivotal decisions, rather than the International Cricket Council or either nation’s cricket board. Snickometer — provided and operated by BBG Sports and paid for by Fox Sports — was chosen instead of UltraEdge, which is standard in England.
Ben Stokes and Jamie Smith are incredulous after the latter is given out caught behind via Snicko (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
The problem comes when Snicko is judging very fine edges, when the sound wave put on screen to visually illustrate the noise of ball on bat does not always match up with the actual footage of the event. The spike in the graph can appear after the ball has passed the bat… but umpires are still encouraged to treat this as evidence the batter has hit the ball.
The mess reached its apogee when Jamie Smith was adjudged to have nicked a delivery in Adelaide and was given out, despite sound and pictures not matching up. England were livid, and everyone was confused. Not least because Carey and Labuschagne had been reprieved in similar situations. Jake Weatherald also later escaped dismissal in Sydney.
“Careers are on the line with this sort of stuff,” said Paul Marsh, the CEO of the Australian Cricketers’ Association.
Oh, Harry Brook
Harry Brook, what are we going to do with you? Every time you watch England’s vice-captain play, you become a teacher trying to make sense of a gifted but errant child, a boy who could do great things if he stopped doing such stupid things.
Brook himself might point to his Test average of 54 and say he’s doing just fine, and fair enough. But then you look at the number of self-destructive shots he played in this series alone and wonder how much better he could be.
Harry Brook hears the death rattle after attempting to reverse sweep Nathan Lyon at Adelaide (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
In Adelaide, Brook had scored plenty of runs with his reverse sweep, a shot that has long since become a standard part of a batter’s repertoire and not the flashy, avant-garde indulgence of old. But as is often the case, he got giddy, played the shot to a ball on the wrong line at the wrong length, and was bowled.
That pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with its 10mm of grass — 3mm more than normal — flummoxed both teams into scoring a combined 572-36 from 140 overs in under two days of cricket, costing Cricket Australia a reported A$10million (£5m; $6.7m) in lost ticket sales.
“If that was anywhere else, there would be hell,” said Ben Stokes, referring to frequent criticisms of pitches in Asia being sub-standard, but also not quite realising that there was confirmed hell swirling around about this very pitch.
The MCG curator Matt Page (left) speaks with Australia’s stand-in captain Steve Smith as they inspect the pitch (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
The world needed answers. This must be explained. Ideally, someone to blame must be found.
That someone was apparently Matt Page, the MCG ‘curator’ (groundsman, in the rest of the sensible world) and thus the man responsible for the outrage was asked what he had to say for himself in a surreal post-game press conference.
It was a curious sight, a man whose job is (in this unhelpfully reductive casting) essentially to cut grass, being asked to explain why 22 elite sportsmen couldn’t score any runs. “I was in a state of shock,” said Page, and he wasn’t on his own there.
Brydon Carse: England’s No 3
England under Brendon McCullum simply cannot help themselves sometimes.
A case in point: when they lost their first wicket in their chase of 175 to win the fourth Test in Melbourne, out strode bowler Brydon Carse rather than the billed No 3, Jacob Bethall — another madcap scheme from these ker-ay-zee guys.
Brydon Carse swings wildly during his cameo as a No 3 at the MCG (Martin Keep/AFP via Getty Images)
There was some logic to it: the pitch was so spicy that you might as well have a slog, and if you’re trying that, then maybe better it’s a bowler with a lusty swing rather than a batter who is supposed to be more responsible.
But Carse had a few big wipes, then stuck one straight up in the air and was caught.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter because England reached their target with four wickets to spare, but it was symbolic of this team’s absolute commitment to not doing things straightforwardly.
England win a game Down Under
You could say England didn’t so much win the fourth Test in Melbourne as be the only one of the two teams not to lose it. Nevertheless, England will take what they can after failing to win any of their previous 18 matches in Australia. It was their first away Ashes victory since Sydney in 2011.
Ben Stokes and Joe Root savour their first Test win in Australia (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
It turned out to be a consolation prize, but it was a prize. At the very least, two of England’s greats, Stokes and Root, can say they have won an Ashes Test in Australia.
Bashir runs the drinks
Despite the prevailing sentiment, the Brendon McCullum/’Bazball’ era has been far from a complete failure, but if there was a sight that exemplified its pitfalls, it was Shoaib Bashir wearing a fluorescent bib, ferrying drinks onto the field for his team-mates and doing not much else.
Shoaib Bashir runs the drinks as 12th man, again, at the SCG (Philip Brown/Getty Images)
Bashir was plucked from nowhere in 2024 on a hunch that his height (193cm/6ft 4in) and fabled ‘release point’ would do well in Australia. Two years, 19 Tests, some aggressively moderate results and a whole load of reassurances that England were counting on him later, he arrived in Australia as their sole specialist spinner.
But he did not bowl a single ball in the series. He was left out in the first two Tests in favour of an all-pace attack, then, in the other three, in favour of batting all-rounder Will Jacks. In fairness, Australia didn’t play a specialist spinner in three Tests either, but for Bashir to not get any action in the series that his entire international career has been building up to says more about the England hierarchy’s decisions than anything else.
Jamie Smith is bounced out. Sort of
Nasser Hussain is not a man prone to needless hyperbole. Forthright views, firmly delivered, but not hyperbole. So when the former England captain and The Athletic columnist calls a dismissal “up there” with the worst he’s seen, you know it’s pretty bad.
A disbelieving Marnus Labuschagne celebrates as Jamie Smith trudges off (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Australia couldn’t believe their luck when they tried tempting Smith into doing something silly by getting Marnus Labuschagne to bowl 70mph bouncers as they worked towards a second new ball… and he actually fell for it, slapping an abysmal shot straight to Boland out on the extra cover boundary.
England were 323-5, with Root batting like a god at the other end: even by their standards of throwing promising positions away, this was something else.
Jacob Bethell: England’s great hope
Before Sydney, Bethell wasn’t so much a cricketer as a concept. An idea of a thrilling, talented, attacking Test batter who hitherto hadn’t actually produced much.
He had three promising scores in New Zealand a year ago, then was thrown into the final Test of the summer series against India when entirely unprepared, and looked it, too.
Jacob Bethell plays a trademark punch off the back foot during his maiden Test century at the SCG (Philip Brown/Getty Images)
He was thrown in at the deep end in Australia, too, and asked to bat at No 3 after Ollie Pope’s continued selection became unviable. It was sink or swim stuff, but in the second innings of the final Test, he swam with gusto, producing a sensational knock of power, control and elegance that provided some proof that he can be what England are desperately hoping he is.
It’s hard not to get carried away when a player provides hope like this in an otherwise bleak series from an English point of view, but it’s OK to get carried away now and then.
