England v Australia recap: Rain sees Aussies retain the Ashes
Catch our ball-by-ball coverage, the scorecard, and full stats from the fourth Ashes Test here.
Ashes recap
It’s an unfortunate result but one that was always bound to happen with an Ashes in England, especially being so early in the season. Australia has officially retained the Ashes.
Can they win next week at the Oval to take it beyond doubt? We will have to wait. For England, a drawn 2-2 series is the best they can hope for, meaning it will be at least a decade between Ashes series wins for the English.
Let’s look at the scores of this Test, and then we will take you through how it played out.
England won the toss and bowled first.
Australia 317 All Out – Mitch Marsh 51, Marnus Labuschagne 51, Chris Woakes 5/62.
England 592 All Out – Zak Crawley 189, Jonny Bairstow 99, Josh Hazlewood 5/126.
Australia 214/5 – Marnus Labuschagne 111, Mitch Marsh 31, Mark Wood 3/27.
And that’s all she wrote.
England won the toss to start the match and decided bowling first was the way to win this match, which wouldn’t be the case.
Early inroads were going to be essential for the English in what were pretty average bowling conditions; while Khawaja was gone early, all the Australian batters managed to at least get starts.
David Warner went on the attack making 32 from 38 balls while Marnus Labuschagne posted a crucial 50 from number three. His partnership with Steve Smith in hours two and three of the Test looked like taking the match away from England.
Smith only managed to get into the 40s as did Travis Head, he was again out to a short ball to give Stuart Broad his 600th wicket. With Australia selecting the extra batter they were able to get through all of day one and through some of day two but in the end Woakes was too good, finishing with five wickets and removing Josh Hazlewood to finish the Australian innings of 317.
David Warner went on the attack making 32 from 38 balls, while Marnus Labuschagne posted a crucial 50 from number three. His partnership with Steve Smith in hours two and three of the Test looked like taking the match away from England. Smith only managed to get into the 40s, as did Travis Head; he was again out to a short ball to give Stuart Broad his 600th wicket.
With Australia selecting the extra batter, they were able to get through all of day one and some of day two. However, in the end, Woakes was too good, finishing with five wickets and removing Josh Hazlewood to finish the Australian innings on 317.
Alongside Zak Crawley was Moeen Ali, who did exceptionally well at number three; he got his way to 54 before being out to the pull shot. Four scores of 50 rounded out the top six of England, Root with 84, 61 for Brook, 51 for Stokes and 99 for Bairstow.
That final name was most impressive; he put on more than 100 with the tail, almost getting himself to another Test century. Unfortunately for him and England, James Anderson couldn’t withstand a full ball from Green that hit him in front. Bairstow was stranded just one run away, the first Englishman since Alex Tudor to finish 99 not out.
England’s score of 592 meant they were almost 300 ahead of Australia, who were looking upon an innings defeat. It would be only rain that could save them.
Australia had the obvious advantage of already being 2-1 up in the series, so all the pressure was on England to make a game of it. The fast-bowling brigade would need to strike early and often to remove the Aussies.
James Anderson started the innings and was economical but again failed to make any inroads. It wasn’t until Wood and Woakes came on that Australia were really challenged. Usman Khawaja and David Warner both fell within the first 20 overs, but thankfully for the Aussies, Marnus Labuschagne managed to bat with purpose through a difficult period.
Steve Smith and Travis Head were both out towards the end of day three, thanks to the short-pitch barrage of Mark Wood. Mitch Marsh managed to get through the night alongside Marnus Labuschagne.
Day four saw the morning session completely rained out, but there was a good opportunity for England to bowl the Aussies out. After lunch, Wood and Woakes were given the ball, but with the ball being were, there was no swing; Marnus and Marsh batted through without issue.
Halfway through the session, the umpires decided it was too dark, meaning only Moeen Ali and Joe Root would be allowed to bowl in the hour up until tea.
Both batters found a liking to the English spinners, hitting them down the ground and over mid-wicket with ease. Marnus managed to get to another Test century, just his second outside Australia. It was an outstanding innings that we can now look back on as saving Australia in this Test and being a huge factor in retaining the Ashes.
A short arm ball by Root was his downfall, though with an edge going through to Bairstow. No issue for the Aussies with Marsh and Green getting through to tea. That’s when the rain began, and simply, we haven’t seen any play since.
The rain has saved Australia and has cost England a chance at winning the 2023 Ashes. That’s just how cricket goes, though. If there is any blame to be laid, it is at the feet of Ben Stokes, who could have declared much earlier on day three. Instead, he wanted to get Bairstow to 100.
It’s the second time in this series that a Ben Stokes declaration decision has affected his team’s chances.
It’s just a short break until these teams move on to the final match of the series. The Oval will host the fifth Test as Australia look for a 3-1 series win, and England looks to level things up at 2-2.
England v Australia line-ups
England XI: Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Moeen Ali, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Stuart Broad, James Anderson
IN: James Anderson
OUT: Ollie Robinson
Australia XI: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood
IN: Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood
OUT: Todd Murphy, Scott Boland
Team news (England)
The week-and-a-half off has been enough to refresh the English side and see ten of the 11 that won in Leeds retained. Despite publicly declaring himself “100 per cent fit” days ago after back spasms ruled him out of the second half of the third Test, Ollie Robinson has been forced out for James Anderson who no doubt will charge in from the end named after him a few years ago. Turning 41 at the end of the series, this must seriously be considered his final Test at home - though how many times have we said that now?!
The week-and-a-half off has been enough to refresh the English side and see ten of the 11 that won in Leeds retained. Despite publicly declaring himself “100 per cent fit” days ago after back spasms ruled him out of the second half of the third Test, Ollie Robinson has been forced out for James Anderson who no doubt will charge in from the end named after him a few years ago. Turning 41 at the end of the series, this must seriously be considered his final Test at home - though how many times have we said that now?!
Moeen Ali will be batting at number three once again to allow middle-order players such as Harry Brook and Joe Root to bat where they feel most comfortable, and Moeen is not afraid of producing poor individual returns if it unlocks the best out of his teammates: “I’m past the stage where it’s about me, averages or anything like that. I’ve always been a player where what I feel like is best for the team. If I come off once in four knocks – if I do play the next one – and chip in in the other innings, it’ll be a decent job done. This could be my last game or so and I’d rather finish at number three for England.”
Team news (Australia)
The tourists are due to make two changes after backing in the embattled David Warner to bounce back. Warner was seen batting particularly aggressively in the indoor nets during Australia’s final training session yesterday, and if he can take a clear head into this match, we could see some imperious strokeplay. Cummins said of his New South Wales teammate: “He's been out there over the last couple of days putting in a lot of work, but I think this tour he has shown a lot of good signs and hasn't quite kicked on to make that big score. Some of those innings he's played under really tough circumstances has made it easy for Smith to come in and score runs, or the like.”
Mitch Marsh’s brilliant all-round performance in Leeds forced Australia to rejig their balance in a way we didn’t imagine even before Todd Murphy was called up to replace Nathan Lyon: for the first time in more than a decade, they’re going in without a full-time spinner. Don’t forget that Lyon played 100 consecutive Tests, so one has to go back beyond that to find Australia’s last all-seam attack. We’ll reminisce about that shortly, but what does it mean this week?
Whilst Cummins only hinted at it yesterday by saying Australia’s top five is all that will certainly remain the same, Cameron Green had a complete training session with the team indoors yesterday that suggests he’s back into the side. He and Marsh are likely to accompany the pace bowling trio of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Cummins himself. Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne bowled a fair bit of spin in the nets yesterday in preparation for their roles as relief spinners.
But with England’s innings often being so brief throughout this series, and the possibility that they’ll have to go even harder to take the rain out of the contest, the Australians should feel comfortable about going in without a spin bowler. We saw last week that Green and Marsh can both swing the Dukes ball a bit in these conditions and hold their own at this level.
Manchester could perhaps be one of Australia’s first choices when it comes to Ashes venues they’d prefer to play at, particularly when looking to close out a series. The Aussies have not lost any of their last seven Tests at Old Trafford - four wins and three draws - with their most recent loss way back in 1981.
By our records, January 2012 was the last time that Australia did not use any slow bowling - neither 'frontline' nor 'part-timer'. In the third game of the four-Test series at home to India, Australia used the quartet of Ryan Harris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, and two overs of slow mediums from Mike Hussey for some reason. Of course, we could see some overs from Head and/or Labuschagne this week, but Pat Cummins will be hoping neither of them are needed.
Key stats
England have won each of their last four Tests in Manchester, the most recent of which was their innings and 85 runs win over South Africa in August 2022.
There has been just one instance in history of a team coming back from a 0-2 deficit to win a Test series (Don Bradman’s Australia in 1936/37).
Manchester has been a stronghold for Australia, with four wins and three draws in the last seven Ashes Tests here.
England last beat them in August 1981.
Usman Khawaja is 103 runs away from recording 1000 runs in a second consecutive calendar year. However, he scored fewer than 100 match runs in each of the two previous matches.
Joe Root needs 29 runs to overtake Denis Compton and become the highest run-scorer at Old Trafford. He currently has 790 runs at an average of 60.76.
Stuart Broad is just two wickets away from 600 Test wickets. He also needs eight wickets to overtake Alec Bedser (52 wickets) as the highest wicket-taker at Old Trafford. James Anderson is behind Broad on 37.
Josh Hazlewood to Ben Duckett in this Ashes series: 3/45 from 44 balls (avg 15.00, ER 6.14rpo).
The average first innings score in the last ten years of Tests in Manchester is 382.
