England demolished in nine-wicket slaughter by Australia after horror batting collapse on day four of first Ashes Test

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England demolished in nine-wicket slaughter by Australia after horror batting collapse on day four of first Ashes Test

England suffered a crushing defeat in the first Test after poor batting on the fourth day.

The hope created by the third-wicket partnership between Joe Root and David Malan was quickly extinguished and England suffered a nine-wicket loss.

England fell due to the fall of Joe Root's wicket

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England fell due to the fall of Joe Root’s wicketcredits: PA
Australia's Pat Cummins secures his first win as Test captain

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Australia’s Pat Cummins secures his first win as Test captaincredit: getty
Ben Stokes had a test match to forget with bat and ball

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Ben Stokes had a test match to forget with bat and ballcredit: EPA

That means their hopes of getting the Ashes back – remember, the Aussies hold little urns – are somewhere thin and non-existent.

England’s batsmen self-inflicted with a series of anemic shots and their last eight wickets fell for just 74 runs.

Captain Root admitted: “It’s very disappointing because we worked really hard to get ourselves back in the game and we knew how important it was to try to meet today’s new ball.

“If we had taken our partnership forward, we could have given ourselves a chance. You saw how the pitch was moving sideways and cracks were visible.

“It’s a shame we didn’t get through that opening phase. But there are some good things to take from this game – in particular, the bowling effort – and we should come back stronger in the second Test.”

England won the toss and elected to bat first after leaving out Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson. And, once the game started, he was out.

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The stand between Root and Malan soon ended on the fourth morning.

Left-handed Malan steered the pitch towards Nathan Lyon, jammed the ball into his pads and it fell into the hands of Marnus Labuschagne at silly point.

This was off-spinner Lyon’s 400th Test wicket.

Then the big one, devastating for England. Root poked a delivery from all-rounder Cameron Green and took a catch for 89 runs.

It was Root’s highest score in a Test match in Australia but England needed more than that, and more.

The ball is slightly off the pitch but Root will know that he does not need to play on it.

Lyon took his second wicket of the morning session when Ollie Pope tried to cut a ball that was too close to him for the shot.

It was the first ball Pope faced Lyon and, once again, the Surrey batsmen looked frantic and ran against a spin bowler. If he has to become a big international batsman then it is a big drawback.

Ben Stokes has made a disappointing return to cricket after self-imposed exile to take care of his mental health and fix his troubled left index finger.

Nathan Lyon took his 400th Test wicket in a quick match

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Nathan Lyon took his 400th Test wicket in a quick matchcredit: EPA

He scored five runs in the first innings and his bowling was restricted due to a left knee injury.

Stokes could only manage 14 runs in the second innings before getting caught in a terrible mess against Pat Cummins and handed a catch to Gully.

Jos Buttler edged a ball he could have left alone and then Ollie Robinson, whose batting for England has been as disappointing as his bowling has been impressive, attempted a ridiculous reverse sweep against Lyon and on point Caught.

A “catastrophic” power outage on the ground meant the world feed of TV pictures went down with the decision review system.

So no one around the world could see what was happening for 20 minutes, although that was at least one time when no wickets had fallen. Or maybe it would have been better if some wickets were invisible.

Mark Wood was bowled by Lyon as he aimed a wish-wash drive and then Chris Woakes was caught targeting an uppercut against Green.

The Aussies needed just 20 runs and regular opener David Warner suffered a rib injury, with debutant wicketkeeper Alex Carey finishing first with Marcus Harris.

Carey was caught behind Robinson, but came to an inevitable end with a square drive for four by Harris of Wood.

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