Australia on brink of another Ashes triumph after crushing England resistance

Charles Reynolds in Adelaide: England will return. Their Ashes however is all but run, comprehensively outplayed by an Australian side who require just four wickets on Day Five – that is as long as they can prevent England from scoring an inconceivable 268 more runs.

In reality, without producing anything miraculous, things went about as well as could be hoped for from an England point of view, particularly with ball in hand. They arrived with Australia already 356 runs ahead, six wickets remaining and with local heroes Travis Head and Alex Carey at the crease looking to extend the torment to as late in the day as possible.

The early signs looked ominous for England as the hosts added 41 in the first nine overs, but with the wicket of Head, they made an opening in the opposition lineup and efficiently made their way through Australia’s middle and lower order. Albeit no doubt helped by the fact that with such big lead already built, the hosts were perhaps favouring attempts at run scoring rather than a more measured approach.

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Opening woes haunt England yet again

Josh Tongue was the pick of the English bowlers, his reward figures of 4/70, as the tourists took the final six wickets for just 78 runs. It still left them facing a world record chase of 435 to win, but they had done well at least to prevent it being so much more.

One fatal flaw in England’s Ashes campaign has been the almost total failure of their opening partnership to get the batting off to a good start. Today was only the third time in the series the pair have made it out of the first over without losing a wicket, and even then they only got as far as the second before Ben Duckett edged Pat Cummins to second slip – he is looking increasingly lost in Australia as his nightmare series continues.

Another man well off the pace is Ollie Pope who made it as far as 17 before he simply had to prod at one and was caught superbly by Marnus Labuschagne in the slips. It would be no great surprise if he has played his last innings in the series.

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Crawley stands tall amid the collapse

The much maligned third member of the top order triumvirate however looked in great touch, Zak Crawley finishing the day as the highlight of England’s batting card. His was a more measured approach than we are used to seeing from him, although he denied after play that this was a deliberate tactic, more just a reaction to the way Australia bowled.

“I was just trying to see ball and hit ball really, I wasn’t purposely slower,” he said. “They didn’t give me a lot to hit early. I was just trying to play every ball on its merits. It certainly wasn’t on purpose. I certainly didn’t change my technique.”

Despite the quality of his innings, Crawley would not make it to the close, on 85 he became the third scalp in a deadly late spell from Nathan Lyon that also yielded Harry Brook and Ben Stokes and snuffed out what tiny remaining hope there had been of an England comeback.

Crawley acknowledged the difficulties of facing such a highly polished opposition: “It’s been tough. They’re a very, very good side, they were the favourites coming in to it and they’ve proven why.

“They’ve played very well and made it very hard for us. obviously we’ve been slightly short of our best but credit has to go them, they haven’t allowed us to be at our best.”

England’s almost complete inability to find answers to the exceedingly tricky tests the opposition have sent them has ultimately been their downfall. Tomorrow they will surrender the Ashes, it is just a question of when.