Rob Smyth (now) and James Wallace (later)
2026-01-06 23:50:00
Key events
WICKET! Australia 567 all out (Boland c Brook b Jacks 0)
Scott Boland goes first ball, caught at slip off a lovely off-break from Will Jacks. Beau Webster finishes on 71 not out, one short of his Test best. On the plus side, the red ink lifts his average to 41.09.
Australia lead by 183 runs, and the smart money is on the series ending before lunch today.
Drinks
133rd over: Australia 564-9 (Webster 68, Boland 0) Josh Tongue now has 15 wickets at 21.33 in the series. He’s got something about him and will surely be inked in as England’s first-chance seamer for the forseeable future.
WICKET! Australia 564-9 (Starc b Tongue 5)
England say that Ben Stokes is being assessed for a ‘right adductor complaint’. Harry Brook is captaining the team in his absence, hoping somebody can hoover up the last two wickets quicksmart.
Josh Tongue is usually the man for the job. He seams a full-length delivery through the gate to bowl Mitchell Starc, who looks quizzically at the pitch before walking off. Beautifully bowled.
132nd over: Australia 560-8 (Webster 67, Starc 2) We’ve spoken about most of England’s selection decisions, from the spinners to the openers to Jamie Smith. It’s also really important they find a specialist new-ball bowler. Ideally it would be Ollie Robinson, who remains England’s best Test bowler for my coin, but that looks unlikely. I think Sam Cook deserves a proper chance
A weary delivery from Carse to Webster flies away for four leg-byes. Australia lead by 176 runs.
131st over: Australia 553-8 (Webster 65, Starc 1) If Webster does get a regular place in the side, there’s a chance Cam Green will be moved up to replace Usman Khawaja at No5. The only other selection decision is around Jake Weatherald. You fear for him a bit, especially with a trip to South Africa coming up.
In other news, the question of the day comes from Alex Netherton.
With England washed-up, knackered, and almost totally hopeless – a last dead cat bounce now about to ker-splat into the dusty ground – why do you think the Guardian thought you were suited for this shift in particular?
130th over: Australia 550-8 (Webster 64, Starc 0) Webster pulls Carse smoothly and serenely for four. Really good player, this guy, and he surely deserves a run in the team for the next year or so.
“We’re told a Bazball article of faith is ‘moving the game along’,” says Darryl Accone. “It’s clear from this Test alone, however, that applying such a credo indiscriminately has the effect of advancing the game to the opposition’s advantage, as shown by the sporadic headlessness of Brook, Jamie Smith and the England pace battery, among others.
“In contrast, Australia know both that time is longer than rope and that Test cricket is ‘per ardua ad astra’ (through adversity to the stars). Quaint ancient practices like taking time to play yourself in and batting time are what have helped bash Bazball in the end.”
I’m loath to judge the merit of England’s approach based on this series, for one main reason: England have been crap. They played orthodox Test cricket four years ago and were plugged 4-0, because they were crap then too.
Ach, I don’t know. I’m sleep-deprived and grumpy. I still think a better version of this approach can cause problems for any team, as we saw for much of the 2023 series.
129th over: Australia 544-8 (Webster 59, Starc 0) Smith gets a standing ovation after making his 13th Ashes hundred. Like Joe Root’s century earlier in the game, it was a low-key masterclass from an all-time great.
WICKET! Australia 544-8 (Smith c Smith b Tongue 138)
Josh Tongue gets Steve Smith for the sixth time out of six. I don’t suppose you can call Smith a bunny when he has just made 138, but it’s still a nice moment for Tongue. It was a terrific delivery that straightened off the seam, squared Smith up and shaved the outside edge. The other Smith, Jamie, did the rest.
128th over: Australia 542-7 (Smith 136, Webster 58) England hit Australia with a five-man pace attack on the first day at Perth. Brydon Carse is the last man standing and continues to charge in with intent, if not always accuracy. A poor ball is tickled for four by Webster to bring up the hundred partnership. England are face down in the dirt and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Stokes leaves field with groin injury
127th over: Australia 535-7 (Smith 136, Webster 52) Webster works Stokes for a single to reach a breezy half-century from 64 balls. He looks a really good player, has from the moment he turned the India series Australia’s way on debut a year ago.
Oh, tremendous news for England. Ben Stokes has injured in the groin and won’t be able to complete his over. I don’t suppose it matters in the grand scheme – they don’t play another Test until the summer – but it’s a symbolic blow at the end of a miserable series for England. Jacob Bethell bowls the last two balls of the over.
126th over: Australia 531-7 (Smith 135, Webster 49) Apologies, we’re having some technical issues at the start of play. Smith and Webster have already hit a boundary apiece off Stokes and Carse respectievly.
125th over: Australia 524-7 (Smith 135, Webster 42)
It’s another early start today, with a two-and-a-half-hour morning session to make up some of the time lost on the first day. The players are getting ready to take the field.
They do things well in Australia. On the first day of this fifth Test came a fitting tribute to the victims and first responders of the Bondi atrocity, and on the third day the Sydney Cricket Ground was turned into a sea of pink to once again raise funds for the McGrath Foundation.
Out in the middle, however, Australian charity was in far shorter supply. Across three sessions their batters ground England’s bowlers into the dust, answering any questions about their motivation since securing the Ashes and throwing up a few more about their beaten opponents.
Faces flush from the ordeal, Ben Stokes and his team trudged off at stumps seeing pink elephants. Steve Smith’s 37th Test century, 129 not out from 205 balls, had followed the second half of Travis Head’s sizzling 163 from 166, and with it Australia had reached 518 for seven from 124 overs. The lead sat at 134 runs overnight and looked an ominous one.
The legendary Neil Harvey, 97, talks to Tanya Aldred in a charming interview.
I’ve been disappointed in England. I think the way they approach the batting side of things, they get too reckless, nobody seems to want to build an innings, like a Cowdrey or a Boycott.
It might work against ordinary teams but when you get a class side like Australia it’s a different ballgame. I used to score runs relatively quickly, and everyone gets a lot of enjoyment out of it, but when you try to play this Bazball thing it takes the odds away from winning an important Test. I’d like to see them pull their hooves in.
Barney Ronay
Forty-five minutes into a quietly overcast morning at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Matt Potts came into the England attack from the Randwick End, and immediately began running through his variations.
His first ball was wide and smashed through cover by Travis Head. His second ball was both short and wide and hacked over gully by Travis Head. His third ball was short and straight and smashed past midwicket by Travis Head. His fourth ball was defended with a show of furrowed caution, to loud, mocking cheers from a crowd that had begun to tuck into the day. Welcome to the treadmill, Pottsy. And yes, it’s always like this around here.
Geoff Lemon
There was a time, while Steve Smith was at the height of his batting prowess, when “best since Bradman” was used with confidence. The thing about that line is that even when the recipient has dominated for years, it gets applied too quickly, given the point of comparison is a career-lasting two decades. Lots of players reach the top for a time, no other has stayed as long. Smith was untouchable for six years before returning to the realm of the merely very good.
The combination of those phases, though, took him to a rare position on the third day of the fifth Test in Sydney. In the statistics of the game there are milestones, then there are mountaintops. For a long time in Smith’s Ashes-heavy career there have been two peaks drawing gradually closer in the mist. Donald Bradman’s 5,028 runs against England is one that even Smith will never climb. Jack Hobbs’s 3,636 runs against Australia is the one he ascended on Tuesday.
Preamble
Rob Smyth
The 2025-26 Ashes, possibly the most anticlimactic series in the 144 years since Fred Spofforth raised hell at The Oval, is limping towards a fitting conclusion. Australia are on course to crush England at Sydney and win the series 4-1, a scoreline not even the most one-eyed Pom could dispute.
It’s been a triumph of experience, maturity, discipline, skill and Travis Head. His audacious 123 at Perth opened English wounds that have yet to heal; four Tests later he is cheerily grinding salt into them. Head’s deceptively pitiless 163 helped Australia to 518 for 7 at the end of day three, a lead of 134. Steve Smith will resume on 129 after making a century that looked inevitable even before he faced his first ball. England’s unbalanced, second-string attack gave everything they had on a punishing day. For a variety of reasons, it wasn’t enough.
Australia, despite a number of faultlines in their team, have won the series with an ease that is hard to comprehend. Maybe that’s an Anglocentric view. It’s not Australia’s fault that England failed to turn up – even if, on some level, they probably craved a greater challenge.
The last rites will be administered either this evening or tomorrow. There’s a chance of a complete blowout when England bat, just as there was in the final innings of 2013-14 (when England lasted 31.4 overs) and 2021-22 (38.5 overs). Their bodies are tired, their confidence shot, their spirit broken. It’s nearly time for everyone to go home.
