![\"Australia's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/skynews-ashes-sydney-australia_7129973.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAustralia’s cricketers have secured a 4-1 victory in the Ashes after beating England in the fifth Test in Sydney. <\/p>\n
Needing 160 to win, the hosts stumbled to 121-5 before completing a five-wicket victory, despite three wickets for England’s fast bowler Josh Tongue.<\/p>\n
Australia had already retained the Ashes within just 11 days of play, and the Sydney match was the only one that went into a final fifth day.<\/p>\n
England claimed a consolation victory in the fourth match of the series inside two days on a poor pitch in Melbourne – their first Test victory in Australia since 2011.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Australia’s players celebrate with the Ashes trophy after winning the final Test against England in Sydney. Pic: AP<\/p>\n
Captain Ben Stokes, who suffered a groin injury during the fourth day of the final Test, preventing him from bowling in Australia’s second innings, said opponents “have understood how to operate against us”.<\/p>\n
“When we get into a situation with the bat where things look easy, opposition teams are doing the same thing to us,” Stokes said.<\/p>\n
“We need to work out what we do in those situations. We play too much 3\/10 cricket in terms of the chances of it coming off, and if you play like that, the chances are it is not going to fall your way in big moments.”<\/p>\n
England’s management team has been heavily criticised for the preparation for the Ashes – or lack of it – as the team played only one intra-squad warm-up game.<\/p>\n
![\"England's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/skynews-ben-stokes-england_7129993.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n England’s Ben Stokes with teammates as they look dejected after losing the final Ashes Test. Pic: Reuters<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Stokes said he wants to remain in his role, but it is not clear whether head coach Brendon McCullum, who leads England’s white-ball side in the T20 World Cup starting in February, will do the same.<\/p>\n The England and Wales Cricket Board ordered a review of the Ashes defeat, with chief executive Richard Gould promising “necessary changes over the coming months”.<\/p>\n Read more on Sky News: England’s last win in the famous series, which began in 1882, was in 2015 at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s cricketers have secured a 4-1 victory in the Ashes after beating England in the fifth Test in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-358790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Moment of reckoning in US<\/a>
Why police recruited killers<\/a><\/p>\n