Familiar batting frailties condemn England to defeat in final Ashes Test

Australia sealed a 4-0 Ashes series victory in Hobart on Sunday after England ended a tough tour with yet another spectacular batting collapse in the fifth Test.

Mark Wood's career-best Test figures of 6-37 helped bowl out the Aussies for 155 at the Bellerive Oval, leaving England with a victory target of 271 in Tasmania.

Openers Rory Burns and Zak Crawley gave the tourists a strong start and they were trading at 4-7 in-play, with Australia out to 11-8, when Burns inside-edged a ball from Cameron Green on to his stumps.

From 68-0, England lost ten second-innings wickets for just 56 runs, losing by 146 runs, but Joe Root vowed to continue as captain, telling reporters afterwards: "I believe that I am the right man to take this team forward. If that decision is taken out of my hands, so be it. I have an appetite to carry on and turn things around."

The 5-0 Australia series victory had gone odds-on after the third Test in Melbourne but England narrowly avoided a whitewash thanks to a tense draw in Sydney.

Root, 6-4 favourite to be England's leading runscorer at the start of the series, rewarded his backers despite averaging only 32.2.

Victorious captain Pat Cummins was the top bowler in the series, claiming 21 wickets, while Scott Boland had a sensational introduction to Test cricket, taking 18 wickets at an average of just 9.55 in his first three matches.

Durham fast bowler Wood took 17 wickets in four matches to top the England bowling charts and Travis Head was named man of the series for his brilliant counter-attacking centuries in the first and fifth Tests.

The left-hander missed the fourth match due to Covid but still finished as Australia's top series runscorer, having been 10-1 to do so before the first Test in Brisbane.

The Ashes rivalry will resume with a five-match series in England in 2023 while Root's men are due to play three Test matches against the West Indies in the Caribbean, beginning on March 8.

Leading Ashes series runscorers

357 Travis Head Australia
335 Marnus Labuschagne Australia
322 Joe Root England
273 David Warner Australia
255 Usman Khawaja Australia

Leading Ashes series wicket-takers

21 Pat Cummins Australia
19 Mitchell Starc Australia
18 Scott Boland Australia
17 Mark Wood England
16 Nathan Lyon Australia

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