LONDON • Despite losing the fifth and final cricket Test on Sunday, captaining the first Australia team in 18 years to retain the Ashes after a 2-2 draw in England - the first tied series since 1972 - means it was mission accomplished for Tim Paine.
The visitors came to the Oval seeking their first series victory in England since 2001, but came up short, losing by 135 runs. But Paine insisted that Australia, who won at Edgbaston and Old Trafford, and came agonisingly close at Headingley, had achieved their main objective of "taking the urn home".
"That's certainly what we came to do," he said. "We're thrilled by that, a little disappointed by this game, obviously, puts a bit of a dampener on it.
"We can be really proud of the way we've come over here, which is a challenging place for Australians to come and play and win."
He said that the opening victory at Edgbaston, by 251 runs, had been crucial for his side's confidence.
He said: "There was so much talk about that being a fortress... so to win it quite convincingly gave us the belief that we could do it."
He also felt that while there were still "some parts that we need to improve" ahead of the next Ashes, scheduled for November 2021 in Australia, they were on course to becoming "a very hard team to beat".
"Obviously Steve had an unbelievably good series and won us a couple of Tests by himself," Paine added, singling out the contribution of Steve Smith, who scored 774 runs in just seven innings after returning from a 12-month ban for ball tampering.
His England counterpart Joe Root, though, expressed his confidence that the overall result would prove to be "a massive stepping stone and starting point for us to really kick on as a team now".
Hailing the summer as "a huge success for English cricket" after their World Cup triumph in July, he added that the next Ashes would be a "huge focus for me" and he was "desperate to take this team forward", with England having lost the previous two series in Australia and last winning in 2015 at home.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
