England secure gripping draw to end Australia’s hopes of Ashes sweep

England earned a famous and battling draw on day five of the fourth Ashes Test in Sydney to end Australia’s hopes of a 5-0 series sweep.

Stuart Broad (8no) and James Anderson (0no) saw out the final 12 deliveries, which had to be bowled by Australia’s spinners due to fading light, as England ended on 270-9 in a notional chase of 388.

Australia had seemed primed for victory when the dismissal of England’s last recognised batter, Jonny Bairstow (45 off 101), left the hosts needing two wickets from the final 10.4 overs at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Jack Leach (26) and Broad followed the dogged lead set by Bairstow and Ben Stokes (60 off 123) – who braved thumb and side injuries respectively to ply crucial knocks for their side – by thwarting Australia’s attack for the next 52 deliveries with men swarmed around the bat.

Part-time leg-spinner Steve Smith had Leach caught behind with 13 balls left – but Broad saw off Lyon and James Anderson (0) then blocked out Smith’s final over as England thwarted the hosts.,

England avoided defeat for the first time in the series and for just the second time in their previous 14 Tests in Australia, with Zak Crawley also impressing as he scored a fluent 77 from 100 deliveries at the top of the order – the first fifty by an England opener in a chastening series.

Jos Buttler (hand) will now fly home due to injury, while Stoke and Bairstow seem doubtful for Friday’s final Test in Hobart and paceman Mark Wood possibly is as well having been thumped on the boot during his lbw dismissal.

if Stokes and Bairstow have made their last appearances of the series, they can take solace in helping ensure England have avoided a third 5-0 whitewash in 15 years in Australia after suffering that fate in 2006/07 and 2013/14.

Stokes winced every time he played a shot during his second fifty of the Test, while Bairstow played another gutsy innings having scored England’s only hundred of this Ashes series far in the first innings, during which he was cracked on the thumb by Pat Cummins.

Stokes, Bairstow and Buttler (11 off 38) all fell in the final session as England slipped from 193-5 to 237-8 – Buttler and Mark Wood (0) dismissed by vicious in-swingers from Cummins in the space of three deliveries in the fifth over with the second new ball.

However, Australia’s victory push was halted by Broad, Leach and ultimately Anderson, with England now having one final chance to win their first Test in Australia since a thumping innings-and-83-run victory at Sydney in January 2011.

Head coach Chris Silverwood will return from Covid-19 isolation to lead England side in the Ashes finale in Hobart, with assistant coach Graham Thorpe having taken the reins for the Sydney Test.

Thorpe had urged England’s batters to show “intensity” and make “good decisions” as they looked to foil at the SCG and Crawley seemed to heed those words as he scored the first fifty by an England opener in this series and only his second since he made 267 against Pakistan in August 2020.

Crawley struck 13 boundaries, predominantly through the leg-side, as he went a long way to cementing his place in the side for the foreseeable future during a morning on which opening partner Haseeb Hameed (9 off 58) suffered his sixth consecutive single-figure score.

Hameed’s torturous series continued as he snicked Scott Boland (3-30) behind to Alex Carey, having been dropped by the same man shortly earlier, and the Nottinghamshire batter is now averaging just 10 across eight innings against Australia this winter.

Dawid Malan (4 off 29) also departed cheaply, bowled by Nathan Lyon on the cut, while Crawley’s enterprising knock came to an end when he was pinned lbw by a delicious yorker from Cameron Green – Crawley falling 23 runs short of the century he said he could score ahead of the game.

Stokes and skipper Joe Root (24 off 85) steadied England from 96-3 with a fourth-wicket stand of 60, during which time they were given some respite by a post-lunch rain shower, which shaved seven overs off the day’s scheduled allocation of 98.

Root could not make it through to tea, caught behind for the eighth time in as many innings in this series as he pushed at a delivery from Boland in the channel and snicked through to Carey.

Stokes clinched his half-century early in the final session when he whipped Cummins for four through midwicket but departed 10 runs later when he deflected a delivery from Lyon that turned and bounced through to Smith at slip – Stokes, unsure whether to play or leave, was furious with himself as he trudged off, for perhaps the final time in the series.

England looked up against it at that juncture and even more so when Cummins accounted for Buttler and Wood and Boland then had Bairstow caught inside-edging to Marnus Labuschagne at short leg – only for the tail to stand firm.