Australian skipper Pat Cummins has admitted that winning the Ashes would be “legacy-defining” after winning the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023 against India on Sunday.
The Ashes starts on Friday (June 16) with Australia looking forward to sealing their first series win in England since 2001.
"We've played awesome cricket for the last two years and being there at the end holding the trophy feels really well deserved,” he said.
The Australian skipper also said that Ashes defines eras and teams as it is very hard to win.
“Whether we like it or not, Ashes tend to define eras and teams. That's great for our team and Ashes are hard to win.
It's not going to be easy but if we were to win it, that is legacy-defining stuff,” The 30-year-old added.
"We've got a big series but we can worry about that in a couple days' time," added Cummins.
"We'll sit around in the changing rooms for a while and then we'll find a nice sunny English beer garden somewhere to sit back and celebrate.
"You only get a few of these moments in your career where you can sit back, acknowledge a pretty special achievement and this is one of those times."
The upcoming Ashes is the most anticipated one as England have won 11 of 13 Tests in the past 12 months under the captaincy of Ben Stokes playing with their “Bazball” brand.
Earlier, Australia defeated India by 209 runs in the WTC final on Sunday at the Oval in London.
Chasing a target of 444 runs, India were bowled out for 234 runs in their second innings on the fifth day of the match.
The victory meant Australia had now captured the one major men´s cricket title that had previously eluded them.
But this result left India, defeated by New Zealand in the inaugural 2021 WTC final in Southampton, still searching for the first piece of global silverware in a decade.
Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland were the chief destroyers for Australia in the second innings with four and three wickets, respectively.
Indian batters got starts but none of them were able to stay at the wicket for a long period of time. Rohit Sharma (43) Virat Kohli (49) and Ajinkya Rahane (46) were the prominent contributors for India