Reaction from England captain Alastair Cook, bowler Stuart Broad and Australian captain Michael Clarke after England beat Australia by 74 runs in the fourth test on Monday (12th August) to win the Ashes series.
Alastair Cook, England captain (Q: Does this really feel like a moment of celebration and completion for the team?)“yes I think so. In terms of…. Yes it does. I mean, nine wickets in a session. The crowd and everything which went with that today. The excitement. Obviously the nerves at the beginning. I think you’re right, that was the moment. We’re going to get greedy I think. We want to try and repeat that at the Oval but we can think about that with sore heads tomorrow and enjoy what’s a very special day and one which I’m certainly going to look back on with huge fondness.”
Alastair Cook, England captain“As a captain and knowing how important that session was. If we’d lost that session, we would have been struggling. I think Broady (Stuart Broad) knew that. The lads knew that and he really charged in for us and when everything clicks, it’s just doing enough, bowling at high 80s with the control that Broady has it’s incredibly hard to bat and I think that I said that in New Zealand and in that spell at Lords when he got seven for there. It was very similar to that. Obviously here it was probably more important in terms of the situation of the game and obviously in the Ashes. Words can’t justify how good a spell of bowling that was. I think Broady will obviously recognise the job that Tim Bresnan did at the other end. You talk about bowling in partnerships and it’s a bit of a cliché to say but that end into the wind wasn’t doing that much but he really built the pressure not letting any release balls go there so huge credit to Bresnan too.”
