The Ashes series win against England
A little correction. Australia did not win the Ashes in 2023. They just retained the trophy because the previous winner was Australia already. The Ashes series of 2023 was drawn. But, according to the Ashes rules, the previous series winner retained the trophy. I remember that England had terrible luck during the series. England could have won the 4th match but rain washed out the match.
Back to the main point. Australia played awesome in the last years but they did not play well against India right before the World Cup. Even they lost the first match against India in the group stage. But they have won the World Cup from there.
The Ashes series 2023 was drawn but Australia won the series in 2022 due to which Australia retained the Ashes series despite the draw this season.
Australia's early performance was not good at all. Australia played an ODI series against India before the start of the World Cup where Australia lost the first two matches by a big margin although they won the last match against India. After losing the first two matches against India, Australia also lost against India in the World Cup tournament and Australia lost a few more matches in the first leg. Due to Australia's poor performance in the beginning, we thought that Australia might not make it to the semi-finals, but in the end, Australia turned around brilliantly and that home stand took them to the World Cup.