{"id":360159,"date":"2025-12-20T09:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/360159\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T09:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:41:09","slug":"staring-down-the-barrel-tourists-digest-ashes-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/360159\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Staring down the barrel’: Tourists digest Ashes horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

England batsman Zak Crawley says it’s too soon to sift through the ashes of a wrecked Australian tour.<\/p>\n

“Obviously very disappointing,” Crawley told reporters on Saturday as the tourists digest the near certainty of going 3-0 down against Australia.<\/p>\n

“We came here to win the Ashes and, yeah, obviously we’re staring down the barrel now.<\/p>\n

“But there will still be plenty to play for.”<\/p>\n

Just not the coveted urn.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Duckett trudges off Adelaide Oval after being dismissed cheaply again. (Joel Carrett\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

England enter Sunday’s final day of the third Test in Adelaide needing a miracle: 228 more runs to win, four wickets in hand.<\/p>\n

After torching England by eight-wicket margins in the opening two Tests, the Australians are on the cusp of retaining the Ashes for a fifth consecutive series – in just 11 days of cricket.<\/p>\n

“They’re a very, very good side,” Crawley said.<\/p>\n

“It was always going to be tough coming up here against them.<\/p>\n

“And they were the favourites going into it and they have proven why – they have played very, very well and made it very hard for us.<\/p>\n

“Obviously we have been slightly short of our best. But a lot of credit has to go to them, they have not allowed us to be our best really.<\/p>\n

“They have bowled very well and haven’t given us a lot … it’s hard to play that way that we have in the past, perhaps – and to their credit for that.<\/p>\n

“They have set good fields and it is just an attritional style of cricket over here, it’s not easy to score quickly.”<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

Joe Root and his England teammates are in a world of pain Down Under. (Joel Carrett\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Crawley, who made 85 on the fourth day of play, accepted that explanation sound simplistic.<\/p>\n

But he didn’t accept criticism of some underperforming teammates.<\/p>\n

His opening partner Ben Duckett can’t leave it, caught in slips again – he has 97 runs at 16.16 this series.<\/p>\n

The world’s No.1-ranked batsman Joe Root (219 at 43.80) and captain Ben Stokes (165 at 27.50) fumed after Saturday’s failures – 39 and five respectively.<\/p>\n

Vice-captain Harry Brook (173 at 28.83) went to water again, bowled attempting a reverse sweep.<\/p>\n

And first-drop Ollie Pope (125 at 20.83) faces excommunication from the team but Crawley bristled at the criticism heaped on his mate.<\/p>\n

“That is just cricket to be honest,” he said of the lean returns from Pope, who averages 16 from 12 Test innings in Australia.<\/p>\n

“I have had lots of tough times, so has everyone in that change room, so has everyone who has ever played cricket.<\/p>\n

“I feel like Popey gets a hard time sometimes, I’m trying to work out why.<\/p>\n

“He has played really well in the last year, he has got big hundreds when we needed him to against tough opposition.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, he’s had a couple of quiet games. But I think he’s an unbelievably good player and he plays a really hard role.<\/p>\n

“Obviously he’s wanting more for himself than he has got, but you can’t underestimate some of the good knocks he has played.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England batsman Zak Crawley says it’s too soon to sift through the ashes of a wrecked Australian tour.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,20341,2129,1208,17066,44,20339],"class_list":{"0":"post-360159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ben-duckett","11":"tag-ben-stokes","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-joe-root","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-zak-crawley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360159","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=360159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}