CRICKET
Day 5: Aussies thrash England by 275 runs
England lost yet another Test match in Australia due to another poor performance by their batting lineup.
Australia registered a comfortable victory by 275 runs and now they are leading the series by 2-0.
Jos Buttler and the lower-order of England displayed some epic resistance with the bat but Australia was too good for them at the end.
Australia 1st innings 473-9 Dec
Labuschagne 103 Stokes 3-113 Warner 95 Anderson 2-58
England 1st innings 236 all-out
Malan 80 Starc 4-37 Root 62 Lyon 3-58
Australia 2nd innings 230-9 Dec
T. Head 51 Root 2-27 Labuschagne 51 Malan 2-33
England 2nd innings 192 all-out
Woakes 44 Richardson 5-42 Burns 34 M. Starc 2-43
England started the final day with their overnight score of 82-4.
Australian bowlers started brilliantly as Starc get rid of Ollie Pope in only the third over of the day.
England was hoping that Ben Stokes will play another match-saving innings for them but he also failed today.
Stokes was given LBW out on Nathan Lyon’s delivery.
England was 106-5 and it was looking that the game will end within the first two sessions but Buttler and Woakes stood up with a solid partnership for the 7th wicket.
Chris Woakes and Jos Buttler added 61 for the 7th wicket in 31.2 overs that gave some hope to the English fans.
Both of them batted outstandingly and tackled the Australian pace bowlers brilliantly.
Smith used both pace and spin against them but they were looking solid as a rock.
They did not give any chances to the Aussie bowlers and the pressure was building on Australia.
The solid stand between Woakes and Buttler was finally ended by Richardson who clean bowled Chris Woakes in the 88th over to snuff out England’s hopes of a draw
Woakes scored 44 runs off 97 balls.
Buttler continued his fight with the tail-enders.
Unbelievable effort from Buttler
It was an epic effort from Jos Buttler today as he tried his best to draw the match.
Buttler is known as an aggressive batter but today he played a knock that was totally opposite to his style.
He consumed 207 deliveries to score just 26 runs.
Buttler tried his level best to save the game for his side but his knock also ended in an unbelievable way as he was given out due to hitting the wicket.
Buttler stayed almost 4 hours on the crease and played with a strike rate of just under 13 which is the 3rd lowest strike rate in Test history(minimum 200 balls).
The tail-enders of England played with more maturity than most of their top-order batters.
Richardson’s maiden fiver
Jhye Richardson was the star with the ball for Australia today as he picked up his first-ever 5-wicket haul in Test cricket.
He shattered the English hopes today by picking up wickets at the right time.
His outstanding 5-wicket haul included the important wickets of Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes.
Richardson took the last wicket of Anderson to end the English resistance as Australia won the game by 275 runs.