MELBOURNE: Australia have retained The Ashes after torpedoing England for just 68 on day three of the third Test in Melbourne to win by an innings and 14 runs and take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.
Debutant paceman Scott Boland, only the second Indigenous Australian to play a men’s test match, came off the Melbourne Cricket Ground turf with a prize stump and astonishing innings figures of 6-7 as England capitulated for 68, their 13th lowest total in tests.
Boland finished with remarkable figures, dismissing Jonny Bairstow (5) and Root before removing Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson for the visitors’ 53rd and 54th Test ducks of the year respectively.
Cameron Green cleaned up James Anderson (2) around 80 minutes into the third day’s play to clinch Australia’s Ashes victory after just 12 days of cricket and ensure the Baggy Greens will keep the urn until at least 2023, when the sides next meet again in England.
“I thought we had a pretty good chance of winning but I had no idea we would do it before lunch,” said 32-year-old Boland, who won the Johnny Mullagh medal as player of the match.
“Just an awesome few weeks, so proud of the group here and just everything’s clicked,” said Cummins, who has led his side with aplomb as a late replacement for Tim Paine.
England captain Joe Root was left devastated. He has now lost seven of eight tests as captain in Australia after failing to wrest back the urn on home soil in 2019.
His top score of 28 in England’s second innings spoke volumes of the team’s batting inadequacies, and he was in no mood to discuss the future of his captaincy. “I think they’ve definitely outplayed us in the three games,” Root said.
England’s last victory on Australian soil came way back at Sydney in January 2011, in a series they won 3-1 under the captaincy of Sir Andrew Strauss, and they will now be aiming to avoid a 5-0 sweep with Tests in Sydney (January 5-9 and Hobart (January 14-18) to come.
