The fourth Test of the ongoing Ashes started on December 26 and was concluded within two days. England won the Boxing Day Test by four wickets, and they registered their first win in the series. This was England’s first win in Australia after nearly 15 years. It was Australia’s third loss in the Boxing Day Test since 2011.
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After winning the first three matches of the series, Australia had already retained the Ashes. Both teams came to this game with a few injury concerns. Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon have been ruled out of the series. For England, Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson have been ruled out as well.
Match Result & Summary
England won the toss and elected to bowl. Australia scored a mere 152 runs in the first innings, and only Michael Neser was the batter who scored more than 30 runs for the team. Josh Tongue was the pick of the bowlers for England and took five wickets for 45 runs.
England’s first innings got concluded for just 110 runs. Only three English batters managed to make a double-digit score for the team. Neser was the most successful bowler for Australia and picked up four wickets for 45 runs.
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Australian batters failed once again in the second innings and got all out for 132 runs. Travis Head made 46 runs off 67 deliveries and was the highest scorer in the match from either side. Brydon Carse picked up four wickets for 34 runs in the second innings for England.
England got a target of 175 runs in the fourth innings and lost the first two wickets for under 70 runs. The team reached the target in 32.2 overs with four wickets in hand. Jacob Bethell made 40 runs off 46 deliveries and was the highest scorer for the team. No batter made a half-century in the game from either side. Tongue took a total of seven wickets in the match and won the Player of the Match award.
England’s Performance: What Went Right
England’s batters had a miserable outing in both innings of the fourth Test. However, the bowlers were on top of their mark throughout the two days of the two days that the match lasted. In the first innings, Tongue bowled his best bowling figures in Test cricket and took five wickets for 45 runs in the first innings. He took two wickets in the second innings and helped England register their first victory on Australian soil in over 14 years. The other English bowlers also had a great outing with the ball throughout both innings.
Australia’s Performance: Where It Went Wrong
Australian bowlers did have a great outing in both innings. Neser took four wickets in the first innings, while Boland took three wickets. In the second innings, Starc, Richardson, and Boland picked up two wickets each. Australian batters failed to spend a decent amount of time in the middle, and it reflected on the scorecard. In the first innings, only Usman Khawaja faced more than 50 deliveries. In the second innings, Head faced 67 deliveries in his innings of 46 runs. Smith took 39 deliveries to score 24 runs, while Green played a knock of 19 runs off 29 deliveries. No other batter managed to make a double-digit score.
