The Ashes 2013: Player ratings for the series - England

Victorious England with the Ashes urn

So, the Ashes are over, huh?

Nope. There’s already a sequel in the works, to be released in winter this year. Much like the Saw franchise, the last good sequel came in 2005 and every further installment has just been really gory.

No more excellent analogies for now, I’ll just skip right ahead to the player ratings. Oh, and congratulations to Ian Bell England, I guess.

England

9.5 – Ian Bell (562 runs at 62.44, 100 x 3, 50 x 2)

With an added layer of steel, Ian Bell is less Sherminator and more Sledgehammer of Eternal Justice. In other words, glorious to watch for a longer period of time than usual.

In this series though, he was the ginger Atlas of England’s batting order. Any time Australia threatened to get ahead, Bell was there to thwart them, yell “not today!” and slap them in the face.

“It’s the Bell-signal. I’ve gotta go, they need me.”

8.0 – Stuart Broad (22 wickets at 27.45, 2 x 5w, 179 runs at 25.57, 50 x 1)

The walking controversy (Walkgate? Nickgate? Broadwalk Umpire?) aside, it was a very fine series for Stuart Broad.

Despite a good showing, he didn’t take many wickets in the first Test but made up for it in the next few. He was a constant threat and was perhaps solely responsible for not allowing Michael Clarke to get going.

7.5 – Kevin Pietersen (388 runs at 38.8, 100 x 1, 50 x 2)

He wasn’t at his most consistent, but scored vital runs when England needed him most, particularly in Manchester where only the rain played a bigger part in denying Australia a victory.

He capped the series with two hugely different fifties (the second had a 75% higher strike rate than the first) at the Oval to (a) ensure that England remained unbeaten and (b) almost snatch a win.

7.5 – James Anderson (22 wickets at 29.59, 2 x 5w)

Jimmy took almost half of his series tally in the first Test, which is the best way to describe his performance.

He had a couple of indifferent Tests and was quite good otherwise without a big haul. He was outstanding at Trent Bridge, only slightly upstaged by a teenaged Australian debutant.

7.5 – Graeme Swann (26 wickets at 29.03, 2 x 5w, 126 runs at 25.20)

A half-decent spinner was always going to make Australia sweat, so it’s no surprise that Swann comfortably ended up as the highest wicket-taker on either side without looking his best.

His biggest haul of the series (9 wickets) did result in England’s biggest win of the series, though.