After turmoil, Aussies rise from the Ashes

Victory, when it came, was all the greater for the difficulty of the journey and the knowledge of what happened in the previous Test.

The Australia cricket team celebrates in the Old Trafford change rooms after securing the Ashes with victory in the fourth Test. Picture: Getty Images

Victory, when it came, was all the greater for the difficulty of the journey, the relief intensified by the anxiety of the last hours and the knowledge of what happened in the previous Test.

The Australian cricket team, which secured the Ashes at Old Trafford early on Monday, celebrated like none before it in recent times. None, that is, since Steve Waugh’s side pulled off a trio of victories to secure the 2001 Ashes — but that was a ­different time, when you had champions such as the captain, Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath.

An ambush in 2005 was a shock to the system, but losses in 2009, 2013 and 2015 confirmed the notion that winning the Ashes in England was a momentous task.

McGrath and Waugh joined the side on the field, late in the Manchester night. Ponting and Warne were on hand to witness the win from the commentary boxes. Coach Justin Langer keeps his old teammates close. None of those former champions had endured what these players had.

Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft all came back to the game after bans. Ten of the XI who played that game in March could be found under the shower of champagne and beer as the team song was sung.

All of them had seen certain victory snatched from them by Ben Stokes at Headingley. When England’s tail pushed the game at Old Trafford into the last hour, captain Tim Paine said he was thinking that maybe he should have taken that job with sports manufacturer Kookaburra. The skipper was about to give up cricket two years ago but was drafted at the last minute into the 2017-18 Ashes side and then elevated to its captaincy a few months later when Smith was banished over the ball-tampering scandal.

“The group has clearly been through a bit of adversity, some more than others,” Paine said after the match. “But the guys that sat in that change room have been through what happened at Cape Town, and at times like that you find out what sort of people you’ve got.”

The sort who stuck to the task, took the last wicket and now travel to London for Thursday’s last Test with a 2-1 lead in the series and England no hope of reclaiming the Ashes.

But for some surly Englishmen, a win doesn’t erase the past. Former bowl­er Steve Harmison was quick to dismiss Smith’s achievements. “I don’t think you can forgive him,” he said on radio. “When you’re known as a cheat … that’s on your CV. You’re marked and you take it to your grave.”