England were blown away for 68 in their second innings to lose by an innings and 14 runs in Melbourne to lose the Ashes for the third straight time.
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England was blown away by an inspired spell of 6/7 from Scott Boland on day 3 of the Melbourne Test. On a wicket that still assisted the pacers on day 3, England’s batsmen floundered and had no answers. After all the hard work put in by James Anderson on day 2, the batsmen just threw away the advantage. England has not registered a total of 300 in all the six innings of the Ashes Test so far. The year has ended on a woeful note for England. They lost a series in India 1-3 as well as home losses to New Zealand and India. With the Ashes gone, the mood in the England camp is pretty bad. Skipper Joe Root summed it up aptly in the post-match presentation.
“It is what it is. We have come to deal with this sort of environment for a while now. Credit to Australia, they blew us away last night. They have outplayed us in this Test match, in fact, the series so far. We have a lot of hard work to do now and come back strong,” Root said.
The current environment that Root is stressing is the lack of development in red-ball cricket in England. He made it clear in the post-match Press Conference. “Unfortunately, where the game is at in our country right now, the only place you can really learn that is in the hardest environment. For what is quite a young batting group, they’re having to learn out here. The environment that they’re coming from, it’s not readying them well enough for Test cricket,” Root stated.
Throughout the entire Ashes so far, England has been found wanting with the bat. In Brisbane, they were bowled out for 147. They did not manage to go past 250 in both innings in Adelaide. During the Melbourne Test, England was bowled out for 185. The lack of contributions from the batsmen, with the exception of Joe Root and Dawid Malan, has hurt them immensely.
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James Anderson’s spell of 4/33 gave England some hope but the Australian batting had far more depth. The second day was a day of contrasts for England, with coronavirus sweeping the camp on day 2. Root acknowledged the contribution of the bowlers but said England could not maintain big levels of consistency.
“Covid threat wasn’t ideal. The way we went about our cricket, especially our bowling was excellent yesterday. Credit to the boys for managing it and giving ourselves a chance in this game. We just have got to do things for longer. There have been pockets, but that’s just not enough. We know where we need to work. We have to stay very strong and make sure we look at the next two games to take something away from this tour,” Root said.
