Australia ease to five-wicket victory to seal 4-1 Ashes series win

Sydney Test matches can be cranky affairs. Everyone is a bit over it. Everyone’s a little sick of one another. What’s holiday time for the rest of the nation is for cricketers a peak activity period. Australia and England have squeezed three Tests into the last twenty-two days, surrounded by Christmas and New Year – why, there’s hardly even been time for golf. There was a sense today that, with the best will in the world, this fifth Test, and these Ashes, could hardly end soon enough.

As the Australians headed for the sheds with the end of England’s innings, the top three batters leading the way in the scurry to pad up, Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland, Michael Neser, Cameron Green and Beau Webster, 170 overs between them these five days, came together for a ritual handclasping and backpatting, before coming off, a team within the team.

Weary? They’d be entitled. Satisfied? For sure. A total of 1,454 runs for 35 wickets conveys that this has been a fine pitch for batting, but there has been bounce on offer for those prepared to bend their backs, so Australia’s multi-tasking pace unit have earned their rewards. Green would be called on before the end, but the rest could put their feet up deservedly.

Ben Stokes led England on, ahead presumably of another long convalescence, but until then propped at slip, a vestigial monarch. One recalled his preliminary remarks about being “desperate to get home on that plane in January as one of the lucky few captains from England who have come here to be successful.” He’ll just be desperate to get home now. “This is our chance to create our own history and it is up to us how that looks,” he said that day. Skipper, it’s looked terrible. The most forlorn reminder of dashed hopes, perhaps, was Shoaib Bashir in his high-viz running a last towel errand.

Out came Travis Head and Jake Weatherald: they have many of the attributes of a successful opening partnership, including complementary games and congenial temperaments; they glove punch with intent. Still, they have not quite nailed a start of substance in nine attempts, and though they bished and boshed at a run a ball for ten overs it was with a distracted air. England were justifiably testy when Weatherald (16) was given not out caught behind, on the field, then off the field, snicko again being mysteriously interpreted by third umpire Kumar Dharmasena. What was the murmuring as the ball passed the edge? A nick? A bat creak? A fart? Brydon Carse certainly wanted an answer more definitive than technology could provide, and so, perhaps, snicko moved a little closer to the end that Starc has in mind – he declared the technology should be “sacked” during the third Test. Words were “exchanged”, and Carse was testy enough to touch umpire Ahsan Raza’s arm, albeit not quite as hard as Stokes touched Marnus Labuschagne’s neck a few days earlier. Remember that?

Before lunch, both batters had hit short balls hazily up in the air. Afterwards, Steve Smith played inattentively forward, and was surprised to be bowled by Will Jacks – and, frankly, anyone would be surprised to be bowled by Jacks. It was all getting a little shambolic. Stokes did one thing right at least, forming his men into a guard of honour for Usman Khawaja as the electronic signage flashed “Thank You Uzzy” – albeit only briefly as Bet365’s message was restored because we’ve got to pay the bills, right?

It wasn’t to be a vintage farewell. After a subtle sweep for four, Khawaja bunted an attempted sweep into space, edged a ball fine of the immobile Stokes at slip, then offered a final glimpse of his old vulnerability from round the wicket, Josh Tongue hitting the stumps off an inside edge. As Khawaja planted a final kiss on his old home turf, in fact, there was the faintest tremor of fourth-innings vulnerability. Jacob Bethell missed Labuschagne’s flying edge at gully, albeit that Labuschagne might have struggled to catch himself in the same position. Labuschagne then hared for an off side single, only for Alex Carey’s call to turn him back, and Matthew Potts’s throw to find him short. Awaiting Dharmasena’s line call, Labuschagne remained bent over his bat as though intending ritual suicide by disembowelment – in batting terms he had already committed it.

The last stretch was a contest of scatterbrained running versus ragged fielding: with 19 to win, a Green single and a potential overthrow were turned into a caper comedy, both batters briefly running towards the same end, Green dropping his bat into the bargain.

Just after 2.30pm, however, Carey threaded Jacks through the covers, and for the presentation to Compton-Miller Medallist Starc the ground was conceded to the spectators. They, in a way, have been the most durable performers of all this summer, 859,580 having attended the twenty days’ play of a possible thirty. The 211,032 who attended this match were a record for the ground, providing Sydney with improbable bragging rights over Melbourne. The people could have done with more cricket; the players looked like they’d had more than enough.

Photograph by Gareth Copley/Getty Images & Robbie Stephenson/PA Wire