Remember at the start of the summer when people were up in arms about the inclusion of Shaun Marsh in the test side? Or that Tim Paine was handed the gloves?
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That all seems like a distant memory now, as the Aussies finished off a dominant 4-0 thrashing of the Poms in Sydney on Monday afternoon.
There were a number of big story lines that played out during the series, and a number of career-defining performances.
For starters, there was still a genuine debate as to who the best test batsmen in the world was before the Brisbane test. A handful of people would throw the names Joe Root or Virat Kohli alongside Steve Smith in that discussion.
Well, that discussion is now over, as Steve Smith just scored 687 runs in a five-test series. And to top it off, that total is more than 240 runs ahead of the second highest run scorer.
In second? Why, Shaun Marsh of course. The oft-maligned Western Australian finally proved he belonged in the Aussie test side, scoring a very important hundred in Adelaide, before topping it off with an impressive knock in Sydney.
That Sydney knock was extra special for Shaun, as he and brother Mitch became just the third pair of Aussie brothers to score a century in the same innings at the test level. You may have heard of the other two pairs: Steve and Mark Waugh, and Ian and Greg Chappell. And the Marshes were the first to do it in Australia.
England had their moments too. Alastair Cook’s 244 at the MCG broke numerous records, including the highest score an opener has ever achieved carrying his bat. It also happened to be the highest score a visiting batsman has scored at the MCG.
Cook also jumped three positions into sixth on the all-time run-scorers list, passing Mahela Jayawardene, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and Brian Lara.
Enough about the batting though, lets talk some bowling. Australia’s attack may have proven themselves the most dangerous in world crickets this summer.
Usually in a test series, one bowler will stand out as the dominant force. Mitchell Johnson’s summer in 2013/14 would be an obvious example of this. This year however, any one of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, or Nathan Lyon could be named the best bowler.
In fact, it was only the third time in history that four bowlers from the same nation had taken 20 wickets in a test series, and the first time since 2006/07. Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Shane Warne, and Stuart Clark did it that year, also in an Ashes series.
The four bowlers also took all 90 wickets available, even with Mitchell Starc missing the Melbourne test. This is even more impressive when you consider that England only had three bowlers take more than 10 wickets in the series.
Lyon also broke records, taking the wicket of Moeen Ali seven times out of a possible 10. In fact, Lyon dismissed Ali more than Ali dismissed anyone this series (7 to 5).
It was a fun test series for the Aussies, but we always smash the English on our home turf. In fact we’re 65-10 with 16 draws on home soil since 2000.
The real challenge will be in two years time, when we try and keep the Ashes in front of hostile English crowds.
