England win the Ashes
England wrapped up victory over Australia in the final Test at the Oval – helped by two mid-afternoon run-outs that removed Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke within minutes of each other.
The victory was wrapped up on the brink of six o’clock, with Mr Cricket Michael Hussey, whose 121 had anchored the tourists forlorn chase for 546 to win, the last man out. He fell to a catch at short-leg by Alastair Cook, off the bowling of Graeme Swann, as Australia were bowled out for 348.
Simon Katich and Shane Watson fell in consecutive overs in the morning session, lbw to Swann and Broad respectively, but by mid-afternoon, Ponting and Hussey had steadied the ship: Australia were 217/2 and the ‘impossible’ was just starting to come onto the radar. the, disaster for the Aussies: having hit the ball straight to Flintoff at mid-on, Hussey called Ponting for a quick single. Ponting, on his heels and ball-watching, was always going to be struggling and Flintoff’s direct hit found him well short of his ground.
Ponting departed for 66 and the advantage was pressed home almost immediately as vice-skip Michael Clarke was run out for a duck: flicking the ball off his legs, it hit short-leg Alastair Cook, as Clarke edged forward looking for a single. The rebound went straight to Andrew Strauss at leg-slip, who threw the stumps down.
England had conjured up two wickets out of nothing and the momentum was suddenly with them. Soon, Marcus North had been stumped by Matt Prior off Graeme Swann and an England victory became a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.
Hussey and Brad Haddin (34) put on 91 for the sixth wicket, before Haddin misjudged an attempt to hit Swann over the top and was caught by Strauss.
Harmison took the next three wickets, including removing Siddle and Clark with consecutive balls: with the Brit Oval crowd roaring him on, Harmison (3/54) failed to pull-off the hat-trick. Three overs later, though, Swann (4/120) wrapped it up.
Read back over the whole game and see the Hawkeye graphics of all the key moments by clicking the logo below.
