The Baggy Greens v The Three Lions – The Final Ashes Test, Day Four: Live Updates
Play gets underway early once more, with a two-and-a-half-hour morning session to compensate for some of the overs lost on the first day. The athletes are making final preparations to take the field.
Pink Tributes and Batting Might
Australia knows how to host an event. The opening day of this final Test featured a moving homage to the those affected and the emergency services of the Bondi tragedy, and on the third day the Sydney Cricket Ground was transformed into a sea of pink to once again collect money for the McGrath Foundation.
On the field of play, though, Australian charity was in far shorter supply. Across three sessions their batmen dominated the English bowling, dispelling any doubts about their motivation since securing the Ashes and throwing up a few more about their defeated rivals.
Visibly weary from the effort, Ben Stokes and his team walked off at stumps seeing pink elephants. Steve Smith’s 37th Test century, 129 not out from 205 balls, had succeeded the concluding stages of Travis Head’s explosive 163 from 166, and with it Australia had attained 518 for seven from 124 overs. The lead sat at 134 runs overnight and looked an daunting one.
Legendary Critique
The legendary Neil Harvey, 97, gave his views in a delightful interview.
I've been disappointed in England. I think the way they approach the batting side of things, they get too careless, nobody seems to want to build an innings, like a Cowdrey or a Boycott.
It might work against ordinary teams but when you get a quality outfit like Australia it's a completely different proposition. I used to score runs at a fair pace, and everyone gets a lot of satisfaction out of it, but when you try to play this Bazball thing it reduces the chances of winning an important Test. I'd like to see them pull their hooves in.
A Harsh Welcome
Forty-five minutes into a gloomy morning at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Matt Potts was introduced into the England attack from the Randwick End, and immediately began running through his variations.
His first ball was sprayed down the leg side and hammered through cover by Travis Head. His second ball was both short and wide and hacked over gully by Travis Head. His third ball was short and straight and pulled past midwicket by Travis Head. His fourth ball was negotiated with a show of concentrated care, to loud, mocking cheers from a crowd that had begun to tuck into the day. A grueling introduction, Pottsy. And yes, it's always like this around here.
Scaling the Ashes Mountain
There was a time, while Steve Smith was at the pinnacle of his batting prowess, when “best since Bradman” was used with certainty. The thing about that description is that even when the recipient has reigned supreme for years, it gets granted too quickly, given the point of comparison is a career spanning twenty years. Lots of players hit their peak for a time, no other has remained there.
The combination of those phases, though, propelled him into a rare position on the third day. In the record books of the game there are landmarks, then there are summits. For a long time in Smith's Ashes-centric career there have been two peaks slowly approaching in the mist. Donald Bradman's 5,028 runs against England is one that even Smith will never climb. Jack Hobbs's 3,636 runs against Australia is the one he overtook on Tuesday.
Preamble: An Anticlimactic Finale
The 2025-26 Ashes, perhaps the most anticlimactic series in the 144 years since Fred Spofforth raised hell at The Oval, is limping towards a appropriate end. Australia are poised to defeat comprehensively England at Sydney and win the series 4-1, a result not even the most one-eyed Pom could dispute.
It's been a success of maturity, maturity, application, ability and Travis Head. His bold 123 at Perth opened English wounds that have yet to heal; four Tests later he is cheerily grinding salt into them. Head's surprisingly ruthless 163 helped Australia to 518 for 7 at the end of day three, a lead of 134. Steve Smith will start again on 129 after making a century that looked inevitable even before he faced his first ball.
Australia, despite a number of faultlines in their team, have won the series with an comfort that is hard to fathom. Maybe that's an Pommy outlook. It's not Australia's fault that England were not competitive – even if, on some level, they probably wanted a greater challenge.
The last rites will be administered either this evening or tomorrow. There's a chance of a complete blowout when England bat, just as there was in the concluding effort of 2013-14 and 2021-22. Their bodies are weary, their confidence shattered, their spirit dented. It's nearly time for everyone to go home.
