Two series wins and a draw for Mitch Marsh’s men, but questions linger ahead of a massive summer
Mitch Marsh said from the outset of Australia's UK tour that their month-long trip would provide opportunities. With 21 players used across 10 one-dayers and T20s, it certainly did that.
Despite losing five players to tour-ending injuries and another five missing matches at various times due to illness, Australia still found a way to win seven of those 10 matches to head home with two series trophies in hand and another drawn.
While they breezed to a 3-0 sweep of Scotland early in the month, Australia was challenged by England across their tied T20 series (1-1) and 3-2 victory in the ODI contest that followed.
Here are the main takeaways ahead of a blockbuster home Test summer against India, as well as next year's 50-over Champions Trophy in Pakistan.
All-round concerns ahead of India Tests
Nathan Ellis, Xavier Bartlett, Ben Dwarshuis and Riley Meredith all left the UK tour early due to injury. But it was the final blow, an unspecified back concern for Cameron Green, that will be of greatest concern to Australian selectors.
Australia remain hopeful Green could be fit for the five-Test Border-Gavaskar series against India on November 22 with additional scans in Perth set to confirm the extent of the injury. But his ability to bowl in the series is up in the air.
Mitch Marsh, Australia's Test No.6, also sat out the final ODI in Bristol on Sunday with soreness due to a heavy workload that included four 50-over matches in nine days.
He bowled for the first time since April in the previous match at Lord's but said following his side's 3-2 series victory that his absence was precautionary and he will be "all sweet" for the home summer, which begins with an ODI series against Pakistan on November 4.
Test captain Pat Cummins had previously suggested both Marsh and Green would be set for greater bowling workloads against India this summer.
Those plans now hinge on the diagnosis of Green’s injury.
Head's hot streak rolls on
Travis Head has been one of the most impactful players in international cricket over the past 18 months.
He earned four player-of-the-match awards in Australia's 10 games and was their leading run-scorer of the tour with 430 at 53.75.
His part-time off-spin also proved crucial in the ODI series, twice called upon to help stem an England onslaught and twice delivering, with 2-34 in the first ODI at Trent Bridge and a career-best one-day haul of 4-28 in the fifth match in Bristol.
"He's a very underrated bowler and every time he bowls, he seems to change the game," captain Mitch Marsh said following the fifth ODI.
But it's the left-hander's main skill that's been one of the biggest factors in Australia's white-ball dominance over the past year, which extended to the UK where they notched a team-record 14 T20 wins in a calendar year and brought up 14 straight ODI victories prior to their defeat in Durham.
Much of that success has been built from their destructive Powerplay batting, and Head was at his best in the UK with strike-rates of 246 in the five T20 matches and 121 in the five ODIs.
"Where Travis is at now, we just let him play his game and do his thing," Marsh added. "He's found a real consistency in the way he goes about things and he's a game-changer."
While he stonewalled any chatter that he should replace Steve Smith as Test opener against India this summer, that narrative is set to bubble along – especially after Usman Khawaja endorsed it.
Eight batters on the cards for Champions Trophy
It was partly forced through injury and illness, but Australia's longer-than-usual batting line-ups were an experiment the brains trust has long been keen on. They got their best look at it on this tour.
Aaron Hardie enjoyed a breakout series with several telling contributions with the bat from No.8 as well as key wickets as a first-change bowling option.
Head coach Andrew McDonald has maintained their preferred balance is picking their three quicks – normally Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood – alongside spinner Adam Zampa, but said they wanted to have "three distinct ways of playing".
"One of those is with an eighth batter and we've done that previously," he said.
"With the allrounders we've got in Cameron Green, Aaron Hardie, Marcus Stoinis who's not here and Will Sutherland who has been exposed across the journey as well … we've got options to be able to structure up that way.
"Matthew Short is an allrounder in his own right, along with Glenn Maxwell."
That selection approach could prove useful for the Champions Trophy to be held in Pakistan next year, where pitches have become notoriously batter-friendly over the past few years.
Assault on Zampa, Starc highlights Cummins' importance
In Mitchell Starc and Adam Zampa, Australia has two exceptional strike bowlers – Starc is the best in the world with the new ball, while Zampa is up there in his ability to break partnerships through the middle overs.
England made a point of going after both in the ODI series and it paid off in the final three matches where Starc conceded 8.2 runs per over and Zampa 7.8.
Zampa is the leading wicket-taker in one-day internationals since the start of 2020 with 112 – and 84 of those have come in the middle overs.
England's intent to negate that by taking the leg-spinner out of the attack was apparent in his first spells in three of his four matches; he conceded 27 (from three overs), 21 (from two) and 30 (from two) in those initial bursts. He was only spared in the second ODI in Leeds when England were already five down when he came on.
"I wasn't here for the T20s, but we spoke about trying to attack him (Zampa) as much as possible and put him under a lot of pressure," England stand-in captain Harry Brook said.
"We've just taken it into the 50-over games, we haven't let him just settle into a length, we've used our feet really well and we've accessed parts of the ground which we're capable of getting boundaries in."
It meant Australia's captains Marsh and Smith had to cycle through their options in search of a breakthrough, using 13 bowlers across the ODI series to England's eight and making on average more than 16 bowling changes per match compared to the hosts' 12.
At one stage in the first ODI after Dwarshuis went down with injury, Marsh made eight changes during a nine-over period.
It bears reminding this has been a recent Australian tactic in good times as well as bad; Cummins used seven different bowlers in an eight-over period during their suffocating World Cup final bowling performance last year.
But it was perhaps the absence of that man – Cummins – that made it more difficult for Zampa given the grunt work he regularly performs alongside the leg-spinner through those middle overs.
Spin questions left to ponder
Zampa is Australia's barometer; when he takes wickets, they typically win.
He didn't take any in the second T20 in Cardiff as Liam Livingstone and Jacob Bethell romped to the target of 194 with six balls spare, while he missed the third ODI in Durham due to illness as Australia's 14-game winning streak came to an end.
The leg-spinner was Australia's leading wicket-taker for the tour with 14, underlining his importance in the ODI series decider in Bristol when he enticed a false shot out of Brook and had Livingstone caught behind for a duck to stall England's momentum.
He found allies in Australia's array of spin-bowling allrounders, combining with Maxwell, Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Cooper Connolly and Short for 93 overs of spin throughout the five-match series – a record for Australia in a five-game bilateral series outside of Asia.
They were responsible for 23 of 39 English wickets in the five ODIs – another team record in a bilateral series.
It raises the question – do Australia need another specialist spinner to support Zampa in the Champions Trophy on dry Pakistan pitches, or will the skills of Maxwell, Head and the like be sufficient?
Ashton Agar played alongside Zampa twice at the T20 World Cup in June, while Tanveer Sangha was a reserve squad member during last year's ODI World Cup.
Matthew Kuhnemann and Mitchell Swepson made their ODI debuts in the subcontinent in 2022 but haven't played since, while the uncapped Todd Murphy had a breakout debut Test series in India last year and has performed well for Sydney Sixers and Victoria in the limited-overs formats.
Marsh said post-series they'd pick their squad on conditions, with their abundance of allrounders providing "great balance".
"'Maxi' (Maxwell) has done a fantastic job for us for a long period of time in the right conditions and we're blessed to have a lot of allrounders, both pace and spin," he said.
Hardie a future star, Short ahead in opener race
Australia's emerging pace stocks missed their chance to impress due to injury which opened the door for allrounder Hardie to play a bigger role.
With Ellis, Bartlett, Dwarshuis, Meredith and Spencer Johnson all missing, Hardie slotted into the side at No.8 for seven of the 10 matches, a position he is familiar with having broken into WA's side the same way.
While opportunities with the bat were limited, he took advantage when they arose with crucial knocks of 20no in the second T20, 23 in the second ODI and 44 in the third ODI, all while striking at almost 150 runs per 100 balls.
He also impressed as a first-change bowling option with crucial wickets in Leeds (2-26) and Bristol (2-38) and shared the new ball in two T20s against Scotland.
"I'm really impressed by Aaron, it was an outstanding tour for him," Marsh said. "He's a really good young kid and he's learning a lot on the run.
"I thought he played some really pivotal roles for us with both bat and ball throughout this series, so I'm sure he'll take a lot of confidence back home."
While Marsh said they hadn't settled on a permanent opening partner for Head following David Warner's retirement, Short laid down his case in the T20 series against England and the final ODI to help secure a 3-2 series victory.
Short hit 41 and 28 in partnerships of 86 and 52 with Head in the T20s and his 23-ball maiden ODI half-century in Bristol was crucial in Australia getting ahead of the DLS par score.
Jake Fraser-McGurk wasn't required during the ODIs but played three T20s against Scotland and one against England, where he smashed 50 from 31 balls. Young spin-bowling allrounder Connolly also made his debut in both formats.
While both are youngsters on the rise, Hardie and Short's experience at domestic level appears to have them better equipped to take the step up into international cricket right now.
"It's always great when you see young guys come in," Marsh said.
"I thought our senior players stood up when it mattered in games this series and we also got to blood some young guys who gain a lot of value out of playing away for Australia in England."
England's 50-over Bazball a work in progress
England blew Australia off the park at Lord's and were comfortably on track to chase down 305 in Durham before the rain hit to hand them a 46-run DLS victory.
They also had the reigning world champions on the ropes in the three other matches until reckless batting surrendered their advantage.
In the series opener at Trent Bridge, they reached 2-201 after 30 overs with Ben Duckett cruising towards a century. But after he spooned a leading edge back to Labuschagne on 95, they lost their next eight wickets for 102.
Again, in the series decider in Bristol, England were motoring towards a total of 400-plus after reaching 2-202 at the halfway mark of their innings before losing 8-107.
This time Duckett reached his century before falling into Head's trap on 107, as he tried to launch him for a second six in the over, while Brook (72) holed out to long off attempting to hit Zampa for a seventh six of the afternoon.
On both occasions all eight wickets fell to spin.
We can expect to see more of the same ultra-aggressive batting when Test head coach Brendon McCullum takes over England's white-ball sides, with Brook indicating the methods of their Test and 50-over team will "merge into one".
"We'll continue being positive and trying to take the game to the opposition, we just need to do it longer periods and a more sustained amount of partnerships," interim head coach Marcus Trescothick said.
When it comes off, like it did for Brook's 58-ball 87 and Livingstone's 25-ball fifty in the fourth ODI at Lord's, it's incredible viewing. But the challenge for England's ODI line-up, like it is for their Test side, is doing it consistently for 50 overs.
Head and Labuschagne highlighted that in the first match at Trent Bridge when they put on 187 for the fourth wicket to see Australia to their 316-run target with six overs to spare.
Head kicked on well past his century, and crucially finished not out on 154, as did Labuschagne who was unbeaten on 77 after hitting the winning boundary.
Brook showed England could go up and down the gears in Durham when he too was unbeaten on 110 with the hosts 46 runs ahead of the DLS par score when the rain ended their chase in the 38th over.
Due to The Hundred, a lot of England's squad hadn't played any international or domestic 50-over cricket since last year and as Brook highlighted after his maiden ODI century, his side are "still learning as (they) go along".
