By Matt Hardy
England batter Harry Brook insisted his side could claim a “moral victory” this week at the Oval after Australia retained the Ashes with one Test to spare.
Rain scuppered any England hopes of this week’s Test match in south London being a decider and Australia cannot lose the series.
Moral England victory
“We were dominating the game last week so, if the game had played out, I would like to think we would have won. If we can win this week, it almost makes it a moral victory,” Brook said.
“That would be lovely. It’s not nice drawing, but it would be lovely to not give them that privilege.
“We’re just going to go out there and play the same way we have in this series. It’s a shame the weather ruined it for us because we’d have felt very confident going into this game. The rain won last week.”
This series has been a fruitful one for Brook, who burst onto the scene last year across a number of Tests against various opposition, with the No5 scoring three half-centuries and 271 runs in total.
In the other camp Australia “got away with one”, according to middle-order batter Travis Head.
“The feeling around it was yes, we have got away with one, but ultimately we have come here to win the Ashes and we have gone a huge way to doing that,” he said.
“We played really nice for three Test matches, maybe not playing the best week last week, but if we can shut that out and think about what we did well for the first three Test matches, it will put us in good stead for this week.”
The fifth Test match begins on Thursday at 11am.
