There was something about Monday’s Ashes finale at the Oval that felt almost as if it had been written. The coming and going of the rain, the glow of the floodlights against the dark sky, the shifts in momentum as first England, then Australia and then finally England again seized control of the narrative. Somewhere, somehow, someone was scripting this thing.
In Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad, two long-serving cricket warriors going into battle one last time and landing decisive blows to claim the victory, that writer had their ideal protagonists. Broad had made the attention-grabbing decision to announce his retirement mid-match, and for a while it seemed as though he might be punished for what looked like hubris. Until his final, triumphant overs he laboured through the Test: here was a bowler who had made the right decision to call it a day.
