England put an end to Australia’s hopes of laundering the ashes with a draw in Sydney; Australia unable to take final ground from England last night at SCG; James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Jack Leach deny hosts after good tackles from Ben Stokes, Zak Crawley and Jonny Bairstow
Stuart Broad (pictured) and James Anderson watched the last 12 installments as England denied Australia an Ashes sweep
England scored a famous and feisty draw on the fifth day of Ashes’ fourth Test in Sydney to end Australia’s hopes of a 5-0 series sweep.
Stuart Broad (8th) and James Anderson (No.
Australia looked poised for victory when the sacking of England’s last recognized hitter Jonny Bairstow (45 of 101) left the hosts needing two wickets of the final 10.4 overs at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Jack Leach (26) and Broad followed the stubborn lead set by Bairstow and Ben Stokes (60 of 123), who defied injuries to the thumb and side respectively to deliver crucial blows to their side, by foiling Australia’s attack during the next 52 deliveries with invaded men. around the bat.
Steve Smith, who spun his legs part-time, caught Leach with 13 balls remaining, but Broad eliminated Lyon and James Anderson (0) and then blocked Smith’s final as England frustrated the hosts.
England avoided defeat for the first time in the series and only for the second time in their previous 14 Tests in Australia, with Zak Crawley also impressing by scoring a fluid 77 of 100 deliveries at the top of the order – the first fifty by a first. England goal in a penalty series.
Jos Buttler (hand) will now fly home due to injury, while Stoke and Bairstow look doubtful for Friday’s final test in Hobart and pacemaker Mark Wood may have also been hit in the boot during his layoff from lbw.
If Stokes and Bairstow have made their final series appearances, they can take comfort in helping ensure that England have avoided a third undercover 5-0 in 15 years in Australia after suffering that fate in 2006/07 and 2013/14.
Stokes winced every time he played a shot during his second fifty of the test, while Bairstow played other brave innings after scoring the only hundred of this series as England’s Ashes in the first innings, during which time Pat Cummins hit him in the thumb.
Stokes, Bairstow and Buttler (11 of 38) fell in the final session as England fell from 193-5 to 237-8 – Buttler and Mark Wood (0) ruled out by vicious Cummins swingers in the space of three deliveries in the fifth above with the second new ball.
However, Australia’s victory momentum was stopped by Broad, Leach and ultimately Anderson, and now England have one last chance to win their first Test in Australia since a landslide inning and 83-run victory in Sydney in January 2011.
Head coach Chris Silverwood will return from Covid-19 isolation to lead Team England to the Ashes final in Hobart, with assistant coach Graham Thorpe taking the reins for the Sydney test.
Thorpe had urged England hitters to show “intensity” and make “good decisions” as they sought to thwart the SCG and Crawley seemed to heed those words as he scored the first fifty in an England first game in this series and only his second. since it did. made 267 against Pakistan in August 2020.
Crawley hit 13 limits, predominantly through the side of the leg, as he came a long way to cement his place on the wing for the foreseeable future during a morning when starting teammate Haseeb Hameed (9 of 58) suffered his sixth consecutive figure of a single figure. score.
Hameed’s tortuous series continued as he pushed Scott Boland (3-30) behind Alex Carey, having been brought down by the same man shortly before, and the Nottinghamshire hitter is now averaging just 10 in eight innings against Australia. this winter.
Dawid Malan (4 of 29) also started cheap, knocked down by Nathan Lyon on the cut, while Crawley’s entrepreneurial blow came to an end when a delicious Cameron Green yorker covered him lbw – Crawley fell to 23 runs of the century, He said. could score before the game.
Stokes and captain Joe Root (24 of 85) stabilized England at 96-3 with a fourth wicket position of 60, during which time they were given a break from a rain after lunch, which eliminated seven overs of the scheduled assignment of the day. from 98
Root couldn’t make it to tea, falling behind for the eighth time in as many innings in this series when he pushed a Boland delivery into the canal and snuck up to Carey.
Stokes secured his half century early in the final session when he whipped Cummins four through midwicket, but was gone 10 runs later when he deflected a Lyon send that spun and bounced toward Smith on the slip. Stokes, not sure whether to play or leave, was furious with himself as he walked away, perhaps for the last time in the series.
England looked against him at the time and even more so when Cummins took Buttler and Wood into account and Boland then had Bairstow catch Marnus Labuschagne on the inside edge on the short leg, just for the tail to hold steady.
