Australia finish the job
Australia didn’t just win in Adelaide. They completed the paperwork.
After months, if not years, of Bazball chest-thumping about England’s best chance in 15 years, the home side applied the final stamp on a deeply familiar Ashes script, sealing the urn in just 11 days and confirming that Australia remains the only country where English reinvention reliably goes to die.
This was meant to be different. It ended up being decisive.
A flicker of drama on the final morning
England did at least flirt with drama on the fifth morning at Adelaide. A serious-looking hamstring injury to Nathan Lyon briefly opened the door, and a spirited lower-order stand led by Jamie Smith and Will Jacks dragged England far closer to an implausible 435 than the final-day crowd of 20,643 had budgeted for.
Hope, however, remained strictly regulated.
Three late wickets from Mitchell Starc, the outstanding cricketer of the series, and another gravity-defying slip catch from Marnus Labuschagne ensured Australia wrapped up an 82-run win and an unassailable 3–0 lead in the Ashes.
Australia close it out
Labuschagne’s final act, a sharp second-slip catch off Josh Tongue to reward Scott Boland’s relentless accuracy, felt entirely on brand. It was Australia doing the basics better, later, and under less stress.
As Lyon watched on from the dugout, propped on crutches after pulling up while fielding near the boundary, the Australians celebrated beside a worn drop-in Adelaide Oval pitch that had at least given England something they hadn’t enjoyed elsewhere this series, time.
Carey, Head and the numbers that matter
Player of the match honours went to Alex Carey, whose 106, 72, six catches and a stumping quietly underpinned the victory. He also had a front-row seat for another Adelaide special from Travis Head, who continued his private relationship with this ground by scoring his fourth straight Test hundred here.
For Australia, it capped a superb showing from a reshaped bowling attack that welcomed back Pat Cummins and Lyon, the veteran pair who arrived with nearly 900 wickets between them but had barely bowled in the first two Tests. Between them, they claimed 11 of England’s 20 wickets in Adelaide, and might have had more had Lyon not been forced off early.
England’s resistance, briefly
There was genuine resistance from England. Smith’s 60 and Jacks’ 47 pushed Australia into an unfamiliar space, mild discomfort, before Starc removed Smith and the chase unravelled quickly. England lost their final three wickets for 15 runs, the fight acknowledged, the result inevitable.
Brydon Carse also showed the “dog” demanded by captain Ben Stokes, but the record target never truly felt attainable after England’s modest first-innings 286 left them chasing history rather than pressure.
The bigger picture
That, ultimately, was the story of the match, and the series.
What was sold as something new under Stokes and Brendon McCullum has instead dissolved into another mistake-laden Australian tour, this one surrendered faster than any of the previous three. Since England’s last series win here in 2010–11, Australia have needed just 14, 15, 12 and now 11 days to secure the urn. Efficiency, if nothing else, has improved.
Statistically, this was England’s closest brush with victory in Australia in more than a decade. The margin of defeat was their smallest in 16 losses from their last 18 Tests here. Contextually, it still changes nothing.
Australia’s Ashes domination now stretches into a second decade. England haven’t won a series against their oldest rivals since 2015. Their best returns since have been draws at home. Away remains another language.
Aftermath
“That dream is now over,” Stokes said. “It hurts, it sucks, but we ain’t going to stop.”
England won’t stop. They will fight. They will show passages. They will take positives. But in Australia, passages are not enough.
The urn stays put. The script holds. And Bazball, once again, has met the scoreboard.
