Australia beat England by 82 runs at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide on Saturday to win the Ashes 2025/2026 in 11 days. The hosts winning the toss and opting to bat first have posted 371 runs. In response, England managed to get to 286 runs and ended up conceding a first-innings lead. In the 2nd essay, Travis Head, in his home ground, blitzed, scoring 170 runs. England were given a 435-run target in the final innings. Although they did manage to put up a fight back, they were bundled out for 352 runs, with Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Nathan Lyon picking up three wickets each in the innings.
After winning in 2010/2011, this was England’s third series defeat in Down Under. With the new Bazball approach, there was a bit of cautious optimism among the English supporters if they could win the Ashes this time in Australia, but their fortunes have been the same this time around. “The dream that we came here with is now over, which is obviously incredibly disappointing. Everyone’s hurting and quite emotional about it. We’ve got two more games to go and that’s where the focus needs to switch to now. We came here with a goal in mind and we haven’t been able to achieve that. It hurts and it sucks, but we’re not going to stop,” said Ben Stokes said after the loss to the broadcasters.
“Australia have been able to execute things on a much more consistent basis than us with the ball, with the bat, and in the field. This game is based on how you bat, how you bowl, and how you field, and they’ve outdone us on a much higher level,” he observed.
“We’ve got two more games. We’ve got so much to play for. We’re not going to roll over and let this series drift. We’re going to leave absolutely everything out there in these last two games. We’ve got people travelling over to watch, we’ve got pride, and we’re going to give absolutely everything,” Stokes Concluded.
