Cricket Update: England defeat the Aussies by an innings margin to retain the Ashes
It’s all over for Australia now as they have lost the Ashes series after 24 years at home. The series was completely dominated by England from the start, and in the end, it turned out that the most consistent performer was the most deserving one to take
the Ashes home. Australia can only feel mournful and embarrassed by this loss as they now have this painful task of tracing the areas which were troublesome for them during the Ashes series.
The Melbourne Test was another example of England’s dominance in the series, as they again defeated the Aussies by an innings margin. England had given Australia a lead of 415 in their first innings, and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 had a daunting task of batting three consecutive
days to cover that lead and save the Test match. In the end, it proved too much for the Aussies as they were bowled out for 258 in their second innings and suffered a humiliating loss by an innings and 157 runs.
Australia started the third day on a positive note and looked confident to bat as long as they could. Phil Hughes and Shane Watson provided the Aussies with a good start and contributed a partnership of 53 runs for the first wicket. It was a good partnership
from the openers as they did not take any irrational risks in their batting and left the balls on the off side. Their partnership came to a sad end, when Hughes, after having a mix up with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Watson-c96326 was run out for 23.
Shane Watson had a brief little partnership of 44 runs with Ponting, and this Partnership did give some time to Ponting to revive his form. But it was the turn of Tim Bresnen to shine in the series and take some wickets for his side. Bresnen dismissed two
important players of the Aussies, and took the advantage away from them of a good start. Bresnen first trapped Watson (54) leg before, and then bowled a beautiful delivery to dismiss Ponting for 20 runs. It was a beautiful spell of bowling from Bresnen, as
he bowled with a lot of fire and bowled in all the right areas. But Bresnen was not at all finished with his work and took the prize wicket of Hussey to leave the Aussies reeling on their knees.
Michael Hussey was dismissed by Bresnen, when he went for a drive off Bresnen’s bowling and was caught at extra cover by Bell. Suddenly, Australia had lost three important wickets and it was up to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120 and the lower order to save the Aussies from a humiliating
defeat. Clarke played a slow knock of 13 of 66 balls and was not at all comfortable against the English bowlers. His resistance came to an end when he edged a delivery off Swann to the second slip. Australia were struggling at 134-5, and a defeat was just
around the corner for the Aussie skipper. Steven Smith showed some fight, but was not able to continue it for long and bottom edged a short ball from Anderson on to his stumps.
Brad Haddin again showed his temperament and class and played a solid innings of 55*. He struck 4 boundaries and one six in his innings. But it was not enough for the Aussies to save the Test match and in the end the deficit was too much for the tail enders
to be covered. Australia started the fourth day on 169-6, and had a mammoth task of avoiding perhaps the biggest ordeal in the last two days of a Test match. Johnson was first to be dismissed on the fourth day, when he was bowled by Tremlett for 6 runs.
The match was almost over for the Aussies and it had to be some magical stuff from the Aussie keeper to convert this inevitable defeat into a victory. But sadly no medieval magic was enough to convert this loss into a victory, and Aussies had to face the
consequences of their actions. Siddle contributed a 78 run partnership with Haddin, but that was more for their own batting practice than anything else.
In the end, the whole Australian side was dismissed for 258 in 85 over’s. Bresnen took one more wicket to complete his four wicket haul in Test cricket. Swann was another bowler who bowled well and took 2 wickets in his spell. Jonathan Trott, for his brilliant
168, was declared man of the match.
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