The Ashes 2023: Nail-biter Headingley secures continuation of England-Australia series

Pint glasses flew through the air towards sunny Headingley - beer sprayed over the heads of cheering fans.

It was still 2019.

This Sunday in Leeds, it was Ben Stokes who kept England's hopes of winning the Ashes alive.

Now it was Chris Woakes standing with bat and fist in the air in front of the famous Western Terrace, after hitting the winning runs.

As the dust settled, Woakes, the pads still in place, sat and puffed out his cheeks on the dressing Headingley hall benches, as Stokes had done four years earlier.

Stokes, meanwhile, hugged his teammates, as his skipper Joe Root had done before.

"It's a whole different place when you can't do anything," Stokes said.

"I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous at the end.

"I have walked about two miles around the Headingley locker room in the last half hour. I actually haven't watched the last 20 races being scored."

That nerve-shredder of the Headingley's fourth day began with the same delighted roar, as two England batters emerged into the cauldron.

Solid defensive shots were applauded, every run too - not just because the England fans wanted them, but because it's better to do something, anything, when your body is loaded with such strain.

As the wickets collapsed, the stress became more pressing. , squirming in your seat, arms raised in the air with a mind of their own.

< p class="" data-reactid=".248sz1z1yyi.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-18"> Just after lunch came Headingley's dreaded moment.

Stokes, the talisman, flicking the side of the leg. At first there was silence - he couldn't have nicked it, of course Stokes didn't. didn't nick - before realizing the England captain was looking to the dressing room.

But there's one thing these locals love more than Stokes is is one of their own. Stokes said it before the game.

"They love that people from Yorkshire come out and play here," he says.

Step up Harry Brook. The 24-year-old learned the game 11 miles from here in the small Yorkshire village of Burley-in-Wharfedale. He had made his debut for the county on this pitch even as a teenager.

And in a record early in his testing career, Brook has scored four hundred in his first six Tests, at Rawalpindi, Multan, Karachi and Wellington. None of those rounds came in the Ashes, or with the weight of a nation on its shoulders.

In his 75s, Brook has shown maturity far beyond his years. It took England to the brink of victory before Woakes finished the job alongside Mark Wood.

Brook has the world at his feet - and over £1million worth of franchise leagues in the bank - but as he stood holding a beer with his family on the pitch afterwards he was surely thinking at its proudest moment.

In truth, the biggest difference from 2019 was that this victory in England was a team effort, rather than a barely credible solitary act of rescue.

As always, Stokes played his part. Without his 80 in the first innings, Pat Cummins would be planning which barber to visit for his shot with the urn.

But turning Australia's lower order into bobbing ponytails, Wood's raw pacing changed the series' complexion, with England now carrying a weapon to be feared.

If a re...