Andy Zaltzman: Why this year's Men's Ashes are the most hotly contested in history...so far!
Andy Zaltzman: Why this year's Men's Ashes are the most hotly contested in history...so far!
Venue: Emirates Old Trafford Date: Wednesday 19 July Time: 11:00 BSTCoverage: Live text commentary and live video clips on the BBC Sport website and app, plus BBC Test Match Special on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra. Daily Today at the Test highlights on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer from 7pm BST.
The two Ashes series in this been doing it, generating a constantly fluctuating and varied drama, both within matches and across the series, filled with individual and collective subplots, and the cocktail of genius, flaws and struggle that forms the best sport.
A series of cricket is rare in the sports world in that it opposes the same opponents over an extended period and match streak, a quality that makes these Ashes series the most-watched TV epic of the summer.
The three men's tests could each have been won by either side. The difference between the teams after the first legs was less than 100 points in all three matches - seven points at Birmingham, 91 at Lord's, 26 at Headingley.
In the last Ashes in Australia, only one of five matches (Sydney) had a first set spread of less than 100. There were three such matches in 2019, but only five out of 30 tests in the previous six rounds (2009 to 2017-18).
There is no had only had six Ashes Tests with a first set gap of less than 30 runs in the last 20 Ashes series combined, since 1985. The last time we had two such games in a series in England (excluding matches in the rain where the first innings were incomplete), it was in 1909.
In the 343 Ashes' men's Tests played prior to this series, there had only been 25 games won by margins of less than 50 runs or by three wickets or less, which equates to roughly a five-in-three series (none of the 25 won). happened in the 1960s or 1970s).
Venue: Emirates Old Trafford Date: Wednesday 19 July Time: 11:00 BSTCoverage: Live text commentary and live video clips on the BBC Sport website and app, plus BBC Test Match Special on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra. Daily Today at the Test highlights on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer from 7pm BST.
The two Ashes series in this been doing it, generating a constantly fluctuating and varied drama, both within matches and across the series, filled with individual and collective subplots, and the cocktail of genius, flaws and struggle that forms the best sport.
A series of cricket is rare in the sports world in that it opposes the same opponents over an extended period and match streak, a quality that makes these Ashes series the most-watched TV epic of the summer.
The three men's tests could each have been won by either side. The difference between the teams after the first legs was less than 100 points in all three matches - seven points at Birmingham, 91 at Lord's, 26 at Headingley.
In the last Ashes in Australia, only one of five matches (Sydney) had a first set spread of less than 100. There were three such matches in 2019, but only five out of 30 tests in the previous six rounds (2009 to 2017-18).
There is no had only had six Ashes Tests with a first set gap of less than 30 runs in the last 20 Ashes series combined, since 1985. The last time we had two such games in a series in England (excluding matches in the rain where the first innings were incomplete), it was in 1909.
In the 343 Ashes' men's Tests played prior to this series, there had only been 25 games won by margins of less than 50 runs or by three wickets or less, which equates to roughly a five-in-three series (none of the 25 won). happened in the 1960s or 1970s).
