03/01Result
5th Test, England tour of Australia and New Zealand at Sydney, Jan 4-8 2018
Australia won by an inns & 123 runs
Player of the Match
Pat Cummins
Pat CumminsAustralia
03/01Result
5th Test, England tour of Australia and New Zealand at Sydney, Jan 4-8 2018
Australia won by an inns & 123 runs
Player of the Match
Pat Cummins
Pat CumminsAustralia

12.55pm Welcome back, folks. Interesting morning. High on fun, low on quality. How good is 346? Well, it's worth staying that three times in their last seven Test overseas England have scored 400+ on first innings and still lost by an innings. So, on that thought...

12.20pm: England's last pair walk off, along with the Australia players - that will be lunch, slightly early since the innings is at an end. England's last four wickets managed to add 95 (aided by a couple of howling drops), which goes against the grain of the series, but their total of 346 still looks short on a very sound batting surface. Have they got it in them to shake up Australia and make things interesting? Can they dismiss Steve Smith before he gets to three figures? Well, we'll get an inkling when the teams return in 40 minutes, when Gnasher will be back in the comms seat

112.3
W
Cummins to Anderson, OUT, and it ends in a run-out! Anderson fended the ball around the corner and wanted to get up the other end, Crane was slow to react, I think, and was barely in the frame as Bancroft stepped across from short leg to receive the throw and break the stumps

MS Crane run out 4 (18m 7b 0x4 0x6) SR: 57.14

112.2
0
Cummins to Anderson, no run, short, at the breastbone, he does well to keep it down

Here's Ray: "@ Stevie, 477 is England's highest without a century. The highest ever is 524/9 by India in 1976 :)"

Match Coverage

All Match News

Smith all the way

687

Runs scored by Steve Smith in the 2017-18 Ashes- Sixth highest ever for Australia. Sir Don Bradman occupies three of the the top 6 positions. Smith averaged 137.40

Drubbing

4-0

Australia's Ashes Victory Margin - This is the 12th instance of England not winning a Test in an Ashes series

Spin failure

112.5

Bowling average for England's spinners in this series, their worst in any series in which they've bowled 200+ overs

A debut to forget

193

Runs conceded by Crane, the highest for any England bowler on debut, and the fifth highest for any bowler. The record is 222, by Randiv v Ind

Middle-order domination

3

Instances of Australia's Nos. 3-6 all getting 75+. The previous two instances were in 1946 and 1937, during Bradman's captaincy

Batsmen Dominate

1993

Only other instance of Australia adding over 100 runs each for the 3rd,4th and 5th wicket respectively. It was also against England at Leeds in 1993.

Successful pair

6

Century stands between Smith and Khawaja since April 2014. They have 12 stands of fifty or more from 18 innings. The pair have added 1330 runs at 73.88.

Another Record for Smith

111

Innings taken for Steven Smith to reach 6000 Test runs- Joint-second quickest along with Sir Garry Sobers behind Sir Don Bradman who got there in 68 innings.

Fails again

1

No. of 50s converted into 100s by Root in his last ten 50+ scores. In this series, he has failed to score a century after crossing 50 four times.

Contributions from all

2013

Last instance of England's top-5 all scoring 20+ runs in the first inns of a Test, at MCG in Ashes 2013-14. In this Test, all 5 have crossed 20 so far.

Cook goes on

150

No. of consecutive Tests played by Cook, including this match. Only Allan Border (153) has played more in a row.

Can England finish off well?

2

No. of defeats for Australia at SCG in last 20 years, before this match. Both have come against England - 2002-03 and 2010-11. In 26 out of last 28 Tests at SCG, teams have opted to bat first, so as England now.