The AshesThe Ashes belong once more to Australia.
Captain Ricky Ponting and a team of aging champions took the precious urn from England's grasp yesterday when it won the third cricket Test at the WACA Ground by 206 runs, clinching the five-match series 3-0.
Australia set England 557 to win the match -- a run chase which, if successful, would have been unprecedented in cricket history -- then dismissed it for 350, capturing the final wicket two balls after lunch.
PHOTO: AFP
England resumed at 265 for five yesterday after its bid to save the match was undermined by the loss of two wickets in 16 balls before stumps on the fourth day.
It reached 336 for five as overnight batsmen Kevin Pietersen and Andy Flintoff added 75 for the sixth wicket. But Flintoff's dismissal for 51 ignited a collapse which saw England's last five wickets for 14 runs. When Monty Panesar was the last man out, a minute after lunch, Pietersen was stranded at 60 not out.
Shane Warne took four of the five wickets which fell yesterday, finishing the match with 699 Test dismissals, poised to become the first bowler to reach 700 in the fourth Test at Melbourne beginning on Dec. 26.
Stuart Clark took one wicket and Ricky Ponting ran out England wicketkeeper Geraint Jones to prevent Warne from reaching the 700 mark simultaneously with Australia's match and series wins.
"It was all about being ready. We knew how England would play and it was all about execution," Warne said.
"We're really happy with the way we played. England have come out fighting, as we new they would. It's great for the side. We deserve it, we've earned it and we wanted it badly after 2005," he said.
Australia's determination to win this series, to do so emphatically and quickly, was heightened by its 2-1 series loss in England last year which conceded the Ashes to the English for the first time in 17 years.
That result stood as the single stain on the recent record of Ponting's peerless Australian team which, since the English series, has won 13 of 14 Tests, including nine out of nine in the calendar year.
In spite of that record, there were many within Australia who believed Ponting's team was past its best, that its integral members were too old and that its best series were behind it. It was dubbed "Dad's Army" and there were various calls throughout the series for the removal and replacement of players such as Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden.
Yesterday's win was Australia's emphatic response to those critics, and its vindication. It had allowed England to hold the Ashes for only 15 months, the shortest in the Ashes' 124-year history.
"We have been very good in this series," Ponting said. "We had a long time to talk about it, a long time to prepare, 12 or 14 months or whatever it was since the last series. This win is second to none."
Ponting, 31, Gilchrist, 37, Justin Langer, 36, Hayden, 35, Warne, 37, and Glenn McGrath, 36, showed that they are unwearied by age, as Australia clinched the series in 15 playing days.
England has been outplayed in all three Tests and seems barely a shadow of the side which won last year's absorbing Test series in England.
"I thought we played some good cricket," said captain Andy Flintoff. "We had a good crack and it didn't come off. But we've still got two Tests to play and we will be playing for pride."
This was the most anticipated Test series in decades, made so by the quality of last year's series and by Australia's avid hunt for revenge, but it failed to match its hype.
Only Pietersen, with scores of 92 at Brisbane, 158 at Adelaide, 70 and 60 not out at Perth, lived up to his reputation. Paul Collingwood made a diligent 215 in the first innings of second Test and Alastair Cook a mature 116 on Sunday but England's batsmen were otherwise unimpressive.
Flintoff, who was the hero of England's Ashes victory last year, seemed worn down by the responsibilities of captaincy, which he inherited from Vaughan, and of being a tour selector with coach Duncan Fletcher.
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