England’s Ashes hopes are all but over in fewer than six days of cricket after an eight-wicket defeat by Australia in the second Test at the Gabba.<\/p>\n
England finally showed some application with the bat on the fourth day of the pink-ball match in Brisbane, yet still succumbed to their second crushing defeat of the tour following a two-day loss in the first Test in Perth.<\/p>\n
Perhaps determined to set an example to his team-mates after their dismal display on Saturday, captain Ben Stokes dug in for a watchful 50 off 152 balls.<\/p>\n
Stokes and Will Jacks, who made 41 from 92, added 96 for the seventh wicket in 36.4 overs \u2013 England’s longest partnership of the series.<\/p>\n
They were together until an hour into the middle session, when Jacks was sensationally caught by Australia captain Steve Smith at first slip.<\/p>\n
It was the beginning of England losing their final four wickets for 17 runs to be all out for 241. <\/p>\n
Stokes nicked Neser, Gus Atkinson was bounced out by Brendan Doggett and Brydon Carse edged to slip to give Neser his first five-wicket haul in Test cricket.<\/p>\n
Australia were given a meagre target of 65. Though Atkinson had Travis Head chop on and produced a lifter to remove Marnus Labuschagne, victory was completed in 10 overs.<\/p>\n
It leaves Stokes’ team 2-0 down and in need of winning all three of the remaining Tests to regain the Ashes. England have never come from 2-0 behind to win a series against Australia.<\/p>\n
On the most eagerly anticipated Ashes tour for a generation and in what was supposed to be a golden opportunity to win the urn for the first time since 2015, Stokes’ men are threatening to return the worst performance by an England team in Australia in modern times.<\/p>\n
Questions about England’s attitude will again arise as the tourists plan to follow this defeat with a holiday on the Sunshine Coast.<\/p>\n
Regardless of how England spend their time between now and the third Test on 17 December (23:30 16 December GMT), they must somehow improve immeasurably for the contest in Adelaide.<\/p>\n
As Ashes holders, Australia will only need a draw to retain the urn at the earliest opportunity and before thousands of England fans travel over Christmas for the Tests in Melbourne and Sydney.<\/p>\n
The hosts will do so with the boost of captain Pat Cummins set to return from injury and off-spinner Nathan Lyon primed for a recall.<\/p>\n
Australian absences at the beginning of the series presented England with a huge chance they have blown. Now, they must face the consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England’s Ashes hopes are all but over in fewer than six days of cricket after an eight-wicket defeat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-332517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332517","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=332517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}