{"id":303934,"date":"2025-11-23T17:49:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T17:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303934\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T17:49:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T17:49:22","slug":"the-ashes-victorious-australians-head-home-for-bonus-rr-after-thrashing-england-inside-two-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303934\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes: Victorious Australians head home for bonus R&R after thrashing England inside two days"},"content":{"rendered":"

The victorious Australians have departed Perth with grins on their faces after demolishing England in a two-day Test match in Perth.<\/p>\n

Stand-in skipper Steve Smith cut a chuffed figure on Sunday as he walked through Perth airport on his way to catch a flight back to Sydney for a few bonus days of R&R.<\/p>\n

Smith, who had a relatively quiet outing to start the series against England before striking the winning runs, said the team would use the extra days left by the early finish to rest up before regrouping in Brisbane for the second Test on December 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d he told 7NEWS.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great finish to the Test match. Obviously, fantastic to be 1-0 up and heading to Brisbane.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long break now, only being a two-day game, so a bit of recovery, a few hits back home and then up to Brisbane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, England\u2019s chief destroyer Travis Head, who struck an Ashes century for the ages to seal the momentous victory at Optus Stadium, reunited with his children and wife in Adelaide, the hero of the first Test.<\/p>\n

Head blazed a remarkable 123 from only 83 deliveries to deliver Australia victory and chase down 204 runs inside of a session after being thrust into opening the batting against England\u2019s fearsome five-pronged pace attack.<\/p>\n

\"TravisCamera IconTravis Head is greeted by his family at Adelaide airport. Credit: 7NEWS\/7NEWS<\/p>\n

The rest will be doubly welcomed by veteran opener Usman Khawaja, who was forced from the field on both days with back spasms.<\/p>\n

The injury also meant he was unable to take his place at the top of the order, and now leaves Australian selectors a huge call to make about who opens for the remainder of the series.<\/p>\n

Mitchell Starc is likely to make the most of the break as well after claiming a career-best seven-wicket haul in the first innings before taking his match tally to 10 with three more in the second.<\/p>\n

\"SteveCamera IconSteve Smith leaves Perth. Credit: 7NEWS\/7NEWS<\/p>\n

And with doubts over Josh Hazlewood taking part in the series at all and a timeline for skipper Pat Cummin\u2019s return, Starc looms as the key to the host\u2019s chances of retaining the Ashes.<\/p>\n

However, there are no fears over Scott Boland, who headed back to Victoria all smiles after masterminding England\u2019s second-day collapse with three rapid wickets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The victorious Australians have departed Perth with grins on their faces after demolishing England in a two-day Test…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,56117,740,588,85,33383],"class_list":["post-303934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-cricket-team","tag-cricket","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-the-ashes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}