CRICKET
Day 3: Boland’s pace shreds England
Another poor performance with the bat caused England to lose the match by an innings and 14 runs.
England was blown away with the first 90 minutes on day 3 as the debutant Boland took a brilliant 6-wicket haul.
England 1st innings 185 all-out
Joe Root 50 Cummins 3-36 Bairstow 35 Lyon 3-36 Stokes 25 Starc 2-54
Australia 1st innings 267 all-out
Harris 76 Anderson 4-33 Warner 38 Robinson 2-64 T. Head 27 Wood 2-71
England 2nd innings 68 all-out
Root 28 Boland 6-7 Stokes 11 Starc 3-29
Australia has retained the Ashes by taking an unassailable lead of 3-0 in the 5 match series.
England’s performance has been very poor in this series and it was an even worse performance by them as compared to the previous 2 matches.
This Test match was over in almost 2 days as Australia used just 15.5 overs on day 3 to wrap up the test match.
England was bowled out on just 68 runs and they even failed to reach Australia’s 1st innings lead of 82 runs.
Australia scored just 267 runs in their 1st innings but they still won the match by an innings and 14 runs.
It was a wonderful display of fast bowling in this Test match not only by Australia but the English pacers also bowled beautifully especially James Anderson in the first innings.
England started their day with their overnight score of 31-4.
Starc starts the collapse
Australia got the first breakthrough within the first 25 minutes as Mitchell Starc smashed Stokes’ middle stump.
Start employed a quick and fuller ball that drifted through the gate as Stokes moved forward to defend but the ball was too quick and fast for him to defend.
England were 5 down for 46 when Boland came into action and he took no time to wrap up England’s batting lineup by picking up the 4 out of the last 5 wickets.
Bairstow was given LBW on a brilliant delivery bowled by Boland.
Bairstow took a review against the umpire’s decision but the bowl was clearly hitting the stumps.
Boland gets Root
Boland then got the most important wicket of Joe Root in his very next over.
Root tried to drive the ball but he got a big thick edge that went straight into the hands of David Warner at slips.
Boland got back-to-back wickets of Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson in his next over.
Both of them departed without scoring a single run.
Cameron Green then clean bowled James Anderson to wrap up England’s batting lineup on just 68 runs.
This is England’s lowest Ashes total in Australia since 1904 and the lowest Ashes total since 1934 overall.
Scott Boland’s superb 6-wicket haul
Scott Boland was superb in his debut match.
He picked up 6 wickets for 7 runs in just 4 overs.
Boland claimed his 6-wicket haul in just 21 balls.
In the presence of experienced and world-class bowlers like Starc and Cummins (who is the number 1 ranked Test bowler), Boland produced a master-class spell.
Scott Boland was also awarded the Mullagh Medal as Player of the Match which is named after Johnny Mullagh, who toured England as a member of the Australian Aboriginal team in 1868.