ADELAIDE: A dominant Australia collected the last four wickets they needed Sunday, to win the third Test and retain the Ashes in just 11 days of cricket, crushing the dreams of an England side who finally showed some fight.&nbsp;England&#39;s dogged resistance on day five at Adelaide Oval lasted into the second session before Scott Boland removed Josh Tongue for an 82-run victory to ensure the famous urn remains in Australian hands.&nbsp;The tourists needed a win to keep the five-match series alive after being crushed by eight wickets at Perth and Brisbane, with two more Tests still to play at Melbourne and Sydney.&nbsp;But despite showing more grit, they were again outplayed by an Australian team who suffered a setback with spin wizard Nathan Lyon hurting his hamstring and hobbling off.&nbsp;Chasing 435 was always going to be a huge challenge, with no side ever reeling in more than 418 to win in Test history, but England at least gave it a crack as they scored 352 all out.&nbsp;Their demise in just 11 days is the joint second quickest in more than a century since the 1921 series was completed in eight days, with their &quot;Bazball&quot; style of ultra-attacking cricket exposed.&nbsp;England&#39;s capitulation over three Tests is a far cry from the pre-Ashes hype where they were touted as having their best chance in a generation to win a series in Australia.&nbsp;And it made a mockery of former fast bowler Stuart Broad&#39;s claim that the hosts had their weakest side in 15 years, written off by others as a &quot;Dad&#39;s Army.&quot;&nbsp;The reality for Ben Stokes&#39;s men is that England have now gone 18 Tests since winning in Australia, dating back to their last series victory there in 2010-11.&nbsp;Their last three trips yielded one-sided scorelines of 5-0, 4-0 and 4-0, with more of the same on the cards unless there is a dramatic shift in their fortunes.&nbsp;&#39;Livin&#39; on a Prayer&#39;They resumed on 207-6 with Will Jacks on 11 and Jamie Smith two.&nbsp;Smith showed early intent by slog-sweeping Lyon over deep midwicket for six then banged another off Cameron Green as the Barmy Army fans broke into Bon Jovi&#39;s &quot;Livin&#39; on a Prayer.&quot;&nbsp;After four days of searing heat and sunshine, the lights were on with dark clouds looming and after 40 minutes the players went off as fine rain returned.&nbsp;It was a passing shower and they were back out 40 minutes later with lunch pushed back by half an hour.&nbsp;Lyon limped off soon after the restart after pulling a hamstring in sliding to save a boundary.&nbsp;He was sent for scans and ruled out of the rest of the Test, later seen on crutches with rest of the series for him in peril.&nbsp;When Mitchell Starc took the new ball, Smith began hitting out, crunching two fours in a row, and it proved his downfall when he skied to Pat Cummins at midwicket.&nbsp;Will Jacks produced his highest Test score of 47 and steered England&#39;s chase below 100.&nbsp;But he fell to another spectacular catch from Marnus Labuschange, diving to his left in front of wicketkeeper Alex Carey after an edge off Starc.&nbsp;Starc struck again to send Jofra Archer packing before Boland took out Tongue, sparking huge celebrations.&nbsp;England took six wickets before lunch on Saturday to wrap up Australia&#39;s second innings for 349 with Travis Head slamming 170.&nbsp;They then survived for two sessions, but the wheels came off courtesy of Lyon.&nbsp;He bowled Harry Brook and Ben Stokes before tempting Zak Crawley down the wicket to be stumped by Alex Carey for 85, with Cummins accounting for danger man Joe Root on 39.&nbsp;It was left to Smith and Jacks to ensure it would go to a fifth day.

Cricket

England fall 82 runs short of 435-run target in Adelaide.

Australia beat England in third Test to retain Ashes

MOUNT MAUNGANAUI:&nbsp;Devon Conway became just the 10th player in Test history to hit a double century and a century in the same match on Sunday when he reached three figures before tea in New Zealand&#39;s second innings against the West Indies at Mount Maunganui.&nbsp;Conway was on 100 at the break and opening partner Tom Latham on 80 as New Zealand raced to 192-0 and a lead of 347 on the fourth day, backing up his 227 in the first innings.&nbsp;He and captain Latham, who put on a mammoth 323 opening partnership in the first innings with Latham contributing 137, have combined for 515 runs in the match.&nbsp;Conway joins an illustrious list in scoring a double century and a century in the same Test match.&nbsp;Only Doug Walters, Greg Chappell, Marnus Labuschagne, Sunil Gavaskar, Shubman Gill, Lawrence Rowe, Brian Lara, Graham Gooch and Kumar Sangakkara had achieved the feat.&nbsp;Conway&#39;s 327 runs so far are the third highest for New Zealand in a single Test, behind Stephen Fleming&#39;s 343 (274 and 69) against Sri Lanka in 2003, and Martin Crowe&#39;s 329 (30 and 299) against Sri Lanka in 1991.&nbsp;Conway and Latham added 157 runs in the middle session at more than five an over as they looked for quick runs to set up a declaration before the close.&nbsp;New Zealand took four wickets in the morning session as West Indies were 420 all out, with Kavem Hodge left stranded unbeaten on a fine 123 from 275 balls, including 15 boundaries.&nbsp;Jacob Duffy finished with 4-86, including the first two wickets of the day, taking his tally for the three-match series to 18.&nbsp;The West Indies resumed on 381-6, with Hodge on 109 batting alongside Anderson Phillip.&nbsp;Phillip lasted just nine balls and Shai Hope, who missed the last two days because of food poisoning, fell for four.&nbsp;Jayden Seales briefly showed some resistance, making 15 from 53 balls until he was bowled by Ajaz Patel with a ball that grazed the off stump on the way through to the keeper.&nbsp;Kemar Roach was the last man to bat, nursing a hamstring strain suffered on day one, but lasted only two balls.&nbsp;Patel took 3-113 in 41 overs, his first wickets on home soil, while Michael Rae had 2-89.&nbsp;New Zealand made 575-8 declared in their first innings.

Becomes only 10th player in history to achieve this milestone in Test cricket. 

New Zealand's Conway joins elite club with century, double ton in same Test

BRISBANE, Australia: Australia pace bowler Mitchell Starc said Thursday he could not be compared with Wasim Akram after he surpassed the Pakistani great as the leading left-arm pace bowler in Test history. Starc&#39;s six-wicket haul on day one of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane gave him 418 Test wickets, four more than Akram. &quot;Wasim&#39;s still a far better bowler than I am,&quot; said Starc. &quot;So as far as I&#39;m concerned, he&#39;s still the pinnacle of left-armers and certainly he&#39;s right up there with the best bowlers to ever play the game. &quot;It&#39;s nice to be spoken of up around that, but I&#39;ll just try to keep churning a few out.&quot; Starc led the Australian attack in the day-night match at the Gabba in the absence of his usual strike partners Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, who are injured, and spinner Nathan Lyon, who was dropped. &quot;I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve ever played in an attack without one of the three of them playing,&quot; Starc said. &quot;So it&#39;s a little bit different in that regard.&quot; The 35-year-old, who has taken 16 wickets in the series, was the only Australian bowler to trouble the English batsmen consistently on Thursday. Starc went past Akram&#39;s mark when he bagged England&#39;s Harry Brook, caught at slip, for his 415th wicket and third of the innings. Akram, widely recognised as the greatest left-arm bowler the sport has seen, played 104 Tests for his 414 wickets. Starc, who made his debut at the Gabba 14 years ago, was playing his 102nd Test and shows no sign of slowing down. He took a career-best 7-58 in the first innings of the opening Ashes Test at Perth. Starc is now 15th on the all-time wicket-taker list after moving above Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh&#39;s total of 417. He now has South Africa&#39;s Shaun Pollock (421) in his sights and New Zealand&#39;s Richard Hadlee (431). He needs just 16 more wickets to go past the most prolific left-arm bowler of all-time -- Sri Lanka spinner Rangana Herath, who claimed 433 wickets.

Mitchell Starc surpassed Wasim Akram as Test cricket’s leading left-arm pacer with 418 wickets, modestly praises Akram, while spearheading an injury-hit Australian attack.

'Wasim's still better' says Starc after left-arm wicket landmark

NEW DELHI: Shubman Gill said Thursday that his biggest opponent could be &quot;mental fatigue&quot; after the India Test captain recently took over charge of the 50-over side. Speaking ahead of Friday&#39;s second Test against the West Indies in New Delhi, Gill conceded that it was a challenge to play all three international formats, but that was what drove him. &quot;Physically most of the time I feel fine, but sometimes there is mental fatigue because when you are constantly playing,&quot; Gill told reporters. &quot;There is obviously a certain expectation that I have from myself.&quot; India lead the two-match series 1-0 after they hammered the visitors by an innings and 140 runs inside three days in the first Test. Immediately after play ended on day three, Gill was named to succeed Rohit Sharma as ODI captain, adding to the 26-year-old&#39;s workload. Playing all formats&nbsp;&quot;I think that is the challenge about being able to play all the formats for India,&quot; said Gill. &quot;And I want to play and succeed in all the formats for the country, and win ICC titles.&quot;&nbsp;Gill, who made his Test debut in December 2020, took over as Test skipper in May from Rohit. He was India&#39;s leading scorer in the drawn five-Test series in England with 754 runs.&nbsp;He was also vice-captain of the Asia Cup-winning T20 team last month. Turning to the West Indies, Gill said there would be no complacency as India aim to wrap up the series against a team who are a pale shadow of the side that once ruled world cricket. &quot;I don&#39;t think your intensity drops down depending on the opposition,&quot; Gill said.&nbsp;&quot;It doesn&#39;t matter who we are playing. We want to be able to play at our own intensity and we want to win.&quot; West Indies were swept 3-0 at home by Australia in June and July. &lsquo;Keep believing&rsquo;But embattled captain Roston Chase said he had been told to &quot;keep believing&quot; by West Indian greats, including Viv Richards, Brian Lara and Richie Richardson who were at an awards ceremony in New Delhi. &quot;I had the privilege of meeting all three of them and they said the same thing, they told me &#39;to keep believing&#39;,&quot; said Chase. &quot;We are down right now but it has to change at some point. &quot;It starts with belief and need to keep motivating the players to play positive cricket and change around our downfall.&quot;

The newly-appointed India ODI and Test captain, emphasizes managing mental fatigue from constant cricket. Despite the pressure, he’s driven to excel across formats. India leads West Indies 1-0 in the Test series.

Articles tagged with "Test cricket"

Australia beat England in third Test to retain Ashes

New Zealand's Conway joins elite club with century, double ton in same Test

'Wasim's still better' says Starc after left-arm wicket landmark

India's Gill out to avoid 'mental fatigue' from constant cricket