Australia crush England fightback to retain Ashes in Adelaide

England have lost the third Test in an historic Ashes defeat against Australia, who claim victory after just 11 days of cricket.

Australia retain the Ashes with an unassailable 3-0 lead as part of the five-match series in Adelaide.

England were chasing a daunting 435 in the final innings to try and keep the series alive, but fell well short, being bowled out for 352.

High expectations were resting on the shoulders of captain Ben Stokes's men ahead of the series, but a string of underwhelming performances means the wait to regain the Ashes continues for two more years, when the series returns to England.

Ahead of the clash, Stokes had hoped the "Bazball" approach might see the team secure a win in Australia for the first time since 2010/11 - but any hopes were swept aside after England reverted to more ‌traditional test batting and were still beaten.

The dominant nature of Australia's victory will inevitably raise questions over the futures of Stokes and Brendon McCullum as head coach.

"Everyone is obviously hurting and quite emotional about it. But we've got two more games to go and that's where the focus needs to switch to now," Stokes said.

"We obviously came here with a goal in mind and we haven't been able to achieve it. It hurts and it sucks, but we're not going to stop.

"They've been able to outdo us on ‌a much higher level... I thought we did incredibly well to take us where we did in this fourth innings.

"We couldn't do what we came here to do but there was some good stuff to come out of ‌this game."

Asked if he still had the energy for the captaincy, Stokes replied: "Absolutely."

Speaking after the defeat, McCullum brought up the topic of preparation as one area where England may have gone wrong.

"I know that'll be something that's questioned. And when you've lost 3-0, you've got to put your hand up and say, 'maybe I didn't get that preparation right'," he told TNT Sports.

"And that's not just leading into the first game, but it's, 'could we have done more leading into game one and could we have done less leading into game two?'

"It's trying to work out those things, and ultimately, you're responsible for that. You put your hand up and say 'I didn't get that right' because we've lost 3-0."

The intensity and scrutiny of an Ashes series in Australia didn't catch England by surprise but the team "weren't able to deal with it", McCullum said.

"We had such high expectations and hopes for this series that we just almost, it just constrained us a little bit," he added.

England lost the first Test in two days, the second in four days, and the third after the full five days.

The defeat matches the unwanted record of Nasser Hussain's squad of 2002-03 by surrendering the urn in the shortest number of days for a five-day, five-match series.

England will now hope to avoid a 5-0 whitewash in the fourth and fifth Tests over the next few weeks.

Having won back the Ashes from England in 2017, Australia have now retained the famous urn on four successive occasions, drawing two away series and winning twice at home.

"It feels pretty awesome," Australia captain Pat Cummins said. "An amazing series, one I've been thinking about for a long time.

"One of the things I'm most proud about with this group is nothing ever really happens perfectly, there's always something that gets thrown up, but this group just cracks on.

"I missed the first couple of games, but Steve [Smith] steps right in and it's seamless. Nathan Lyon did his hamstring today, but the boys just say, 'okay, that's happened but let's crack on'. I think that's one of the big reasons why we've had the success we've had the last couple of years."

(c) Sky News 2025: Australia crush England fightback to retain Ashes in Adelaide