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Scott Boland leads six for humiliation as Australia rages on to Ashe's fame

 

Australia 267 (Harris 76, Anderson 4-33) defeated England 185 (Root 50, Cummins 3-36, Lyon 3-36) and 68 (Boland 6-7, Starc 3-29) by one inning and 14 runs

Scott Boland's six-wicket haul on his Test debut allowed Australia to complete the Ashes 3-0 by lunch on the third day at the MCG.

Australia's Quicks continued their demolition job against England, with Boland adding his two three-ball wickets in a devastating final hour on day two, with four more on the third morning to seal an innings win as the hosts kept the urn

Boland took a total of six wickets in 21 balls while Mitchell Starc, who had a big hand in reducing England to 31 for 4 on day two in a cauldron-like atmosphere, added Ben Stokes' wicket in the first 25 minutes of the resumption. end with 3 for 29.

Pat Cummins, whose pressure was instrumental in keeping England's battered bats under Australian control, went unrewarded in England's second innings as he helped narrow it down to a total of 185 first innings when he and Nathan Lyon each claimed three wickets .

But the day - short as it was - belonged to Boland, who was selected as the MCG specialist after his appearances for Victoria and became the fourth indigenous Australian to play test cricket. After winning 1 for 48 in England's first innings, he was just unplayable for a team with their defeated confidence and their messed up stroke. At a historic moment, Boland won the Mullagh Medal as Player of the Game, named after Johnny Mullagh who toured England as part of the Australian Aboriginal team in 1868.

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With players on both sides released for resumption in the morning after negative tests returned after a Covid scare, England's task always looked insurmountable, even with Stokes and Joe Root still in lows, their 68 the lowest total ash total in Australia since 1936 and England's lowest total in Australia since 1904.

Starc rattled Stokes' middle stump with a fast, fuller ball that sailed through the gate as the batsman advanced on defense to remove the man remembered for his exploits at Headingley in 2019 but who followed suit a long time in a completely different place. Break from the game.

Boland stepped into the attack and struck with his fifth ball of the day, hitting Jonny Bairstow lbw for 5. Bairstow, who was thrown in the gully by Cameron Green on the first ball of the overs, checked the lbw decision, but was confirmed by the referee to bounce and hit the stumps.

Root must be wanting to disappear when a Cummins delivery hit him in the groin - the third time Root had suffered such an injury in just over a week. He shrugged it off faster than Starc's efforts in Adelaide, due to a fierce tap on the nets that had brought him to the hospital for a check-up earlier in the day.

Root hung around long enough to become England's top scorer - once again - at just 28 this time, but he fell while driving in Boland and slipped past David Warner. After Root had scored 1,708 runs in 2021, Root finished the calendar year two runs behind second-placed Viv Richards and 80 fewer than Mohammad Yousuf's record.

England, however, set another, less-coveted record when Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson departed without goals within three Boland extraditions. That year they got 54 ducks, their worst performance in that division of 1998. Wood spooned a return catch to give Boland his five-for, and then Robinson fought on an outside of the stump and stabbed Marnus Labuschagne at it third slip to catch a catch.

It was Green who bowled the last man, James Anderson, for 2 to seal the result on a day Australia - and Boland - will remember for a long time. England, meanwhile, are facing a serious analysis phase if they are to prevent a 5-0 level.