The Aussies once again proved too good for an England side lacking enough penetration with the ball in those conditions and not having enough depth and resolve with the bat.
The tourists were no match for Australia in the Adelaide D/N Test, which recorded England’s 11th Test defeat Down Under in their last 12 encounters of an away Ashes. Despite arriving with great hopes of regaining the urn, Joe Root and company have been left with disappointment and despair and staring at another embarrassing series scoreline.
Claimed to have overplanned and overthought this Ashes rather than working on the actual set of skills required to succeed in Australia, England left their only out-and-out speedster in Mark Wood and went with a nearly one-dimension pace attack in James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Ollie Robinson and Chris Woakes.
And they paid heavily for it, as once the red Kookaburra got older and softer, England lacked the pace to extract good enough seam movement off the Adelaide Oval track and conceded a massive 473/9 in the first innings.
The Aussies had to be watchful with the bat, but once they played through the tough periods, they dominated. Measured nineties from senior pro David Warner (95) and Steve Smith (93), along with Marnus Labuschagne’s fantastic maiden Ashes hundred (103) helped Australia gain the ascendancy. Playing his debut Test series, wicketkeeper-batter Alex Carey struck a fifty (51) before useful lower-order contributions from Mitchell Starc (39*) and Michael Neser (35) took the hosts past 470.
Despite missing their spearheads Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, Australia ran through England in either innings. In the first one, they dismissed England for just 236. As was the case in Brisbane, only Dawid Malan (80) and skipper Root (62) put up any sort of resistance with the bat for the tourists. But, again, similar to the last game, once the pair was separated, England had nowhere to hide and collapsed to their knees against some accurate and incisive Aussie bowling.
Starc was the pick of the bowlers with four for 37 off his 16 odd overs. The experienced left-arm quick was ably supported by Nathan Lyon, who not only gave his team control but also picked up three wickets. Promising allrounder Cameron Green chipped in with two wickets as well.
The Australian attack continued their great work in the second half where they bundled out England for just 192 after opting not to enforce the follow-on. England’s top six, even Malan and Root this time, failed to keep the Australians at bay for too long as they were reduced to just 105/6.
But then, wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler took some fight back to the opposition in an uncharacteristically dogged fashion. Buttler played a patient and defiant innings that lasted 207 balls for 26 runs. His partnership with Woakes (44) for the seventh wicket made things slightly tougher for the Aussies. However, once Woakes departed, Buttler was soon out hit-wicket and that triggered an early finish to the proceedings on Day 5.
Jhye Richardson ended with a five-fer (5/42) for Australia, whilst senior pros Starc (2/43) and Lyon (2/55) gave England absolutely no freebies at their end.
Earlier on, in the third innings, half-centuries from Labuschagne (51), Travis Head (51) and a quickfire 33 from Green had allowed Australia to declare with 230/9 on the board, stretching their first-innings lead to a mammoth 469.
Brief scores
Australia 473/9 dec (Labuschagne 103, Warner 95; Stokes 3/113) & 230/9 dec (Labuschagne 51, Head 51; Root 2/27) beat England 236 (Malan 80, Root 62; Starc 4/37) & 192 (Woakes 44, Burns 34; Richardson 5/42) by 275 runs
