Lyon's burst puts Aussies on cusp of claiming Ashes
A decisive three-wicket spell from Nathan Lyon late on day four has Australia four wickets away from wrapping up the Ashes in Adelaide
A trio of Nathan Lyon blows in the fourth day's final hour have left Australia just four wickets from completing an Ashes annihilation in Adelaide's third NRMA Insurance Test.
Just as quickly as England raised hopes of their greatest last-ditch heist in an era that has given them several, Lyon ripped them away as he clean bowled captain Ben Stokes in a devastating 17-ball late burst that yielded him 3-7.
By stumps, the visitors had stumbled to 6-207 and still 228 runs away from their target of 435, a fourth-innings total that is 21 runs above what any other team has chased in a Test on these shores before.
Pat Cummins (3-24 off 10 overs) had cracked open the game after Australia fell short of setting their opponents an impossible target, working over the fragile pair of Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope before wrangling out the prized scalp of a furious Joe Root.
But at 3-177 with Zak Crawley (85) and Harry Brook (30) untroubled by a penultimate-day pitch showing only minor signs of wear and tear, England appeared set to go into Sunday with a puncher's chance of an upset.
Enter Lyon.
The off-spinner had sent down 37 consecutive wicketless overs across England's two innings after bagging two victims in his first six balls on Thursday. The tourists swept and reverse-swept him out of the attack, leaving captain Cummins to turn to Travis Head's part-timers instead.
Brought back on as shadows began to lengthen across the pitch, Lyon bowled a reverse-sweeping Brook and then hit the same stump when left-handed Stokes missed a more conventional forward defence.
Both reacted as if they had been done by witchcraft rather than overspun off-breaks.
When the vastly-improved Crawley, who had shown considerable resolve to make England's second highest total of the series after he had scored one run off his first 28 balls, dragged his back foot after missing a straight one from Lyon.
Alex Carey effected the stumping that all-but sealed England's death warrant.
Only a miracle can now stop England from slumping to a 16th defeat from their past 18 Tests in Australia (the other two were draws) that will clinch a fourth successive Australian Ashes series win on their home soil.
Any semblance of momentum England felt they had after Australia lost 6-38 to be bowled out for 349 was gone even before the lunch break as Duckett poked Cummins' second ball as if he was providing Marnus Labuschagne with a warm-up slips catch.
Duckett has had an even more miserable series (averaging 16 from six innings) than the embattled Ollie Pope, yet it was the No.3 who remained in the spotlight as Labuschagne took a left-handed blinder to rival Steve Smith's in the preceding Test.
It capped Cummins' brilliant new-ball spell either side of lunch, though the fact he did not bring himself back on later in the day had some wondering whether his first game in five months had taken a physical toll on him.
For Pope, it marked the seventh time he has been out before reaching double digits against Australia and lowered his overall Ashes batting average to 17.42.
Crawley, who enraged India in a time-wasting row at Lord's earlier this year, cynically employed similar tactics when he delayed Cummins in his final over before the day's first interval. The paceman retained a broad smile after theatrically repaying the favour by pretending to tie his shoelace and then send a fizzing delivery past his outside edge.
Cummins earned a bigger prize after tea. Root's fighting stand with Crawley might well have ended when he shouldered arms and padded away a Head off-break that ball-tracking showed to be hitting the stumps. Saved by Ahsan Raza's not-out call, Root then erred again when a waft outside off gave a fired-up Cummins his wicket for the second time in the Test and 13th time overall.
Root's anger – he punched his bat and screamed twice – embodied the wider frustrations felt by this English batting unit.
An Adelaide crowd that has gorged on South Australian success over the first three days of their Christmas Test toasted local hero Travis Head one more time on Saturday morning as he passed 150 for the sixth time in his Test career.
A maiden career double-century was his for the taking, but the lure of launching the disciplined Josh Tongue into the Members' stand proved too enticing. His attempt found the stuttering Crawley, who caught well after initially struggling to find the high ball in the sun.
Head walked off to another rousing ovation, a regular occurrence in front of his home crowd; his 170 (from only 219 balls) marked his fourth ton in as many Tests here and means four of his nine highest scores have come at the venue.
It ended a 162-run stand with Carey, whose quest to become the first Australian wicketkeeper to score hundreds in both innings of a Test failed when he tickled Stokes to leg-slip for 72.
When Josh Inglis' middling return to the Test side continued as he edged Tongue behind, it exposed the hosts' tail to the second new ball. They coughed up their final three wickets for only five runs to cap another good-but-not-great batting effort this series.
A decisive three-wicket spell from Nathan Lyon late on day four has Australia four wickets away from...
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