Scott Boland (6/7) rips through England as Australia go 3-0 up with an innings & 14 run win

[jnaveen1980]

Foundthis on ci. "This Test match lasted 1084 balls, the shortest completed Test match hosted by Australia in 70 years."

 

[Kroll]

England should just pack up and leave, get home in time for New Year.

 

[Justcrazy]

"This Test match lasted 1084 balls, the shortest completed Test match hosted by Australia in 70 years."

 

[realitygaf]

Foundthis on ci. "This Test match lasted 1084 balls, the shortest completed Test match hosted by Australia in 70 years."

So England have played worse than pakistan when Ian Chappell said pakistan shouldn’t be allowed to tour Australia again. Let’s see if he has to guts to say that about England team

 

[Justcrazy]

India winning the series in Australia with a depleted side shows how good they were

 

[Justcrazy]

So England have played worse than pakistan when Ian Chappell said pakistan shouldn’t be allowed to tour Australia again. Let’s see if he has to guts to say that about England team

If Australia win this series 5 - 0 it will be really humiliating

 

[Savak]

Pakistan almost beat this England team had it not been for the heroics of Buttler, Woakes

 

[Devadwal]

Boxing Day Test over in 7 sessions. If any game over india in 7 session then all the talk only about pitch .

 

[Mesozoic]

Now just imagine, if it was -

India in place of Australia..

Mumbai in place of Melbourne..

And some random debutant indian spinner in place of Scott Boland...


And now try to compare the reaction that would have got from the so called "experts" to this one.

 

[Devadwal]

England’s 2nd innings in Melbourne (27.4 overs) has lasted three fewer overs than their 2nd innings on the much maligned (by some of their fans/journalists) pitch in Ahmedabad in February (30.4 overs).

 

[dildilpak]

Embarrassing the way the whole English lineup choked against a 32 year old debutante who might never play another series for Australia.

 

[Robert]

Time for a clearout, starting with Silverwood. Nobody can survive this..

 

[Ahmed216]

Quickest MCG pitch that i've seen. In fact the pitches throughout this series have been very quick and bouncy.
I think Aussies are afraid to serve such pitches to India for fear of bumrah nd co.

 

[Ahmed216]

How the hell india won back to back series in Australia .

Looks like Aus under Cummins is a far better team. 2018 series Aus were a completely shattered side under a non deserving captain tim paine. 2020 series has to go down as the most incredible series win in history

 

[MenInG]

Scott Boland returned with figures of 6/7 in his four overs as Australia blew away England on day three at the MCG to retain the Ashes.

The win ensures Australia stay at the top of the WTC standings with 100% points while England slip further in terms of PCT.

Already on the brink after a sensational bowling performance from Australia on day two, England needed a big performance from two of their best batters – Joe Root and Ben Stokes. A couple of flourishes and beautiful drives from the pair would have given them a semblance of hope. But once the Australian bowlers found their rhythm again, the procession began.

Mitchell Starc would get through the gates of Ben Stokes with an absolute peach of a delivery. Ben Stokes had no answers as the ball nipped back in, shattering his stumps. He was gone for 11. '

The Scott Boland show then began as he would embark on a devastating spell that would completely shatter the opposition. In the span of his three overs, he picked up four wickets. First, he trapped Jonny Bairstow in front of the stumps who then reviewed the call unsuccessfully.

Then, the big wicket of Joe Root would follow with a full delivery which nipped away from the England skipper. Root could only edge the delivery, perishing for 28.

Wood would be the next one to follow, with Boland taking a sensational caught and bowled. The crowd were up on their feet as Australia were now only two wickets away from a victory.

Robinson would be the next one to perish against Boland, as the pacer again got the delivery to move off the deck. It would prove too good for Robinson, who was dismissed for a duck. By the end, his figures read 6/7 in four overs.

The final scalp would be taken by Cameron Green, bowling Anderson for 2 as the MCG erupted with a big roar. England were bowled out for 68, losing the match by an innings and 14 runs. Australia have now taken an unassailable 3-0 lead, with the Ashes in the bag.

England, on the other hand, will be left pondering where exactly things went wrong as their horrendous tour continued. The fourth Test will be played in Sydney on 5 January.

https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/2430735

 

[sweep_shot]

Wow! Boland has killed it.

Congratulations, Australia.

 

[transparent opacity]

The Ashes: Joe Root not drawn on long-term future as England captain after 'gut-wrenching' defeat

"My energy has to be all about trying to win the next game. I can't be selfish," says Joe Root after England tumble to defeat in Ashes; skipper says team must be "mentally very strong" heading into final two Tests and that "reset" may be needed in red-ball county cricket

Joe Root would not be drawn on his long-term future as England captain following a "gut-wrenching" Ashes defeat - but did say a "reset" may be needed in red-ball county cricket to boost the side's Test fortunes.

England are 3-0 down with just two games to play after folding to 68 all out and an innings-and-14-run defeat to Pat Cummins' side on day three of the third Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Root, appointed as Test skipper in February 2017, has seen his side crumble Down Under, with the mauling in Melbourne following a nine-wicket defeat in Brisbane and 275-run loss in Adelaide.

The 30-year-old, who also in charge when England were trounced 4-0 in Australia in 2017-18, is focussed on leading the side in the final two matches in Sydney and Hobart.

"My energy has to be all about trying to win the next game. I can't be selfish and start thinking about myself," said Root, who ends 2021 with 1,708Test runs at an average of 61.

"The series isn't over yet: we've got two very big games and it would be wrong to look past that. That's all we have to focus on and that applies to me as well, as captain of this team.

"More than anything, we've got to keep looking to do everything we can to get the players in the best possible place to go and win Test matches.

"You've got to rally the players. That's a big part of captaincy. You've got to try and instil that belief in every single one of your team and your squad. More than ever now."

Speaking to BT Sport, Root said: "It is bitterly disappointing, gut-wrenching, everything you don't want at this stage of the tour.

"The reality is that we have been outplayed thoroughly. We have underperformed. We know that and we know the areas we need to keep developing.

"We have two games left in this series and have to make sure we come away from this tour with something to shout about.

"We have to be resilient, mentally very strong and put some pride back into the badge, giving everyone watching us back home something to enjoy and celebrate.

"We all care deeply about playing for England, are proud to do it and need to put that into performances now."

Time for a reset in the red-ball game?
Asked whether the red-ball domestic game is doing enough to prepare England players for Test cricket, Root said: "I think that that is a long conversation that should probably be had at another time.

"You look back at 2015 and the reset that happened in white-ball cricket and maybe that's something that needs to be happening in our red-ball game as well.

"What I would say is that I think that the best 18 players from the county game are definitely on this tour.

"With where the game is at in our country right now, the only place you can really learn is in the hardest environment, with what is quite a young batting group. They're having to learn in the harshest environments."

England's faint hopes of keeping the series alive were pretty much extinguished late on day two as they tumbled to 31-4 during a ferocious 12 overs from Australia's seamers, having already surrendered an 82-run deficit on first innings.

The tourists added just 37 runs to their total on day three as they were torpedoed for their lowest score in Australia since 1904.

England's batting has been woeful all trip, with the visitors slumping to 147 and 297 all out in Brisbane, sinking to scores of 236 and 192 in Adelaide and then making only 185 in their first innings at the MCG before crashing to a series low second time around.

Root said: "We have to do things for longer. There have been small pockets but for nowhere near long enough to get yourself in a position to win a Test match.

"We know the areas we need to improve. We have to keep getting better, stay strong and make sure we look at the next two games as an opportunity to take something away from this tour.

"I thought the bowling was as good as it has been on the whole trip. We put Australia under pressure and got ourselves into a position where we were very much in this Test match. We need to be like that more frequently."

Asked about the impact of Covid-19 - which has seen three family members from England's touring party plus three coaches enter isolation after testing positive - Root said: "It is what it is.

"We have been playing in these times for a while now and have got used to dealing with this environment. All you can do is concentrate on what's in front of you and front up."

https://www.skysports.com/cricket/n...as-england-captain-after-gut-wrenching-defeat

 

[Aman]

Dominating victory for Australia. Why is it hollow. They buried them. They will want to keep doing the same in the remaining tests. England was expected to lose anyway. But not this badly though.

Hollow in the sense their opponents are clearly not any good.

 

[Amjid Javed]

Root should save face and retire, otherwise he will end up with a crippled spine carrying this gutless team.

 

[MenInG]

Joe Root’s shambolic team is careering towards Ashes ignominy, on track to become just the fourth England side in history to suffer a series whitewash in Australia.

Something drastic would have to change on the field - or perhaps the intervention of COVID-related chaos off it - for England to avoid the same fate that befell the touring teams of 1920-21, 2006-07 and 2013-14.

In the past, they have at least been in the contest with Australia’s greatest Test outfit, winning the impossible Test in Adelaide in 2005-06.

In 2013-14, England were in every Test before Brad Haddin often dug the hosts out of several holes.

But this time around, there are few excuses for an England team that finds itself 3-0 down after a comprehensive innings-and-14-run thrashing at the MCG.

Put bluntly, the tourists’ 68 all out on Tuesday summed up a horror three weeks since the start of the Gabba Test.

The current series has been decided inside 12 days of cricket - the fastest Australia have retained the urn since 2002-03.

The Boxing Day Test itself was wrapped up in 180.4 overs - the shortest match on home soil in the past 71 years.

And in turn, no team in Ashes history has retained the urn in a series in Australia with fewer overs played than Pat Cummins’ side this summer.

“I’m a little embarrassed, to be honest,” England great Ian Botham said on Channel 7.

“To lose the Ashes in 12 days ... I just think that England have lost their way. The performance today summed it up.

“You’ve got enough time to get a couple of players in from the Lions tour because we need to freshen it up, at the moment it’s stagnating.”

Botham said he felt for cricket fans in England who, after spending so much time in lockdown, could have enjoyed with the intensity and excitement of a competitive Ashes series.

“It’s been a walk in the park for the Australians. It burns me to say that but they have completely outplayed England,” he said.

“Three or four of the England players can say ‘I gave it a go’ ... I think people at home will be worried. It won’t do a great deal for ticket sales for the (English) summer.

“They will be saying now: ‘Ok, you’ve gone there, it’s been disastrous. You have a period of time now to sort this out.’

“If you want do experiment with a couple of players, the series has gone, you might as well blood them. There’s a long way to go for England before they are competitive against this Australian team.”

Puzzling selection decisions have hurt England this summer, with veteran quicks Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson left out of the first Test in Brisbane and Mark Wood not picked for Adelaide.

The tourists’ bowlers have come in for huge criticism, particularly at Adelaide Oval, where captain Root admitted they bowled too short.

Anderson, in a column for The Telegraph in England, put that back on the team’s support staff for not communicating the relevant analytical data from the dressing room.

In Melbourne it was again the batters, with their woeful 92.5 overs across two innings not befitting of a bowling attack that reduced Australia to 267.

“For mine, this (series defeat) goes back to their preparation for Brisbane,” Australian great Ricky Ponting assessed.

“I just think they’ve out-thought themselves. With their selections for Brisbane, looking forward to Adelaide and then looking forward to the MCG, it’s just - pick your best team from the start and see how far that group can take you.

“The fact that Anderson and Broad didn’t play in Brisbane was staggering. The fact Joe Root didn’t bowl first in Brisbane was staggering. The fact that Mark Wood didn’t play in Adelaide was staggering.

“All their planning and thought and structures have just been completely wrong and it’s come back to bite them. It’s no good looking forward from Brisbane if you’re going to be one and two-nil down.

“And that’s what it was. They planned for Melbourne, already being 2-0 down, they’ve come here and been pantsed again. They’ve got some really, really deep thinking to do.”

The problem has been from the top, with England’s openers failing dismally.

Only once - in the second innings in Brisbane, where Haseeb Hameed and Rory Burns put on 23 - has the first wicket produced more than seven runs.

Root has also been unable to produce his best, called in before the eighth over in four of six innings and still unable to convert a half-century to a hundred.

In many ways, it’s symbolic of England’s issues in the last decade.

Some 74 players world over have averaged at 40 or above in that time. Just two of them are English: Root and Alastair Cook.

And their issues didn’t end there, with the 54 ducks England recorded in the 2021 calendar year the equal most in history with their countrymen of 1998.

Fitting of a touring team that could well go down as England’s worst in history.

https://7news.com.au/sport/cricket/...er-quickest-ashes-defeat-in-history-c-5106403

 

[mastimasti]

England have been poor in the past, I'm pretty sure they even have a lower test score...but they have never been this bad, this consistently and for this long. As average as englands overseas bowling is, the batting is something that would make the podgy village green players red faced.

And for Root to have pr nonsense in his interviews "pride in the badge" and "pressure points"...no, what the team needs is proper batsmen, look at the middle order of butler, bairstow and stokes. These are LO stroke makers with a handful of quality test innings between them. Stokes receives a lot of praise ebuy if he wasn't handy with the ball would he be a worthy test bat?

And the openers, oh man, who can even start with the openers...

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

Why are people acting so surprised here?

It was always Root vs Australia.

Malan-shalan and Bairstow-shairstow are not pressure players. Stokes is mentally out of it.

I do not blame English bowling here, if batters are so atrocious then what can bowlers do?

If they somehow avoid a 0-5 phainta it will be a small victory.

They should cry covid and run away