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Australian batter Marnus Labuschagne believes that Australia were the better team in the last Ashes series in August-September 2019. England won the last match at the Oval which resulted in a series draw. “We’ve just got to finish off the series, we just let it slip at The Oval,” Labuschagne told cricket.com.au ahead of the first Test at Edgbaston beginning on Friday. “We played better cricket the whole time even though we lost at Headingley… we still were the better team. To learn from that series is making sure that we’re on and we finish the job,” he added.
Australian opener Usman Khawaja, who was dropped in the third Test at Headingley, in 2019, which Australia lost to England, said, “You cannot give an inch in Test cricket. I respect England in their own conditions. They’ve got class bowlers – Jimmy Anderson is still class, Stuart Broad is still class, their batting has been clicking lately.”
The 36-year-old Southpaw has scored 1,608 runs at an average of 69.91 in 16 Test matches. In 28 innings, Khawaja scored six centuries and seven half-centuries, with the best score of 195*. He is the second-highest scorer in the WTC 2021-23 cycle, behind England’s Joe Root (1,915 runs).
“A year ago, if you told me we were coming here I would have been very confident, they were struggling a fair bit, the batting looked like they weren’t really sure how to go about it. I feel like ‘Stokesy’ and Brendon McCullum have brought their players and their batting unit a lot of clarity, which can always be dangerous when you’ve got a team with a little bit of momentum. But five Test matches is also a long time, so we’ll do our best to break it down,” Khawaja added.
Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner
England squad:Ben Stokes (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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