The Ashes: Recap the action from Day five of the Third Test from Adelaide Oval

The Ashes is staying where it belongs after Australia wrapped up an 82-run victory in Adelaide.

Thanks for joining us during our coverage across the past five days and we will be back on Boxing Day for the fourth Test!

Australia could be without two star bowlers for the Boxing Day Test after taking a 3-0 lead in Adelaide.

Travis Head is reportedly in charge of Australia’s festivities tonight.

What would you do to celebrate an Ashes victory?

England were always going to live by the sword or die by the sword.

Under their BazBall tsars, the wins have been large and the losses have been larger. It’s a volatile space to live in.

But even the greatest cynics of this English regime couldn’t have imagined it unravelling as bad as this.

Ben Stokes says staying loyal to the current batting line up has not hurt England’s Ashes campaign.

“Look, all the stuff from last week around wanting to see a bit more from the team, I can definitely say I’ve seen that this week,” he said.

“Some of the guys lower down the order I thought stuck in and showed courage, fight and the responsibilty that I was asking for.

“Yes, we’re on the wrong side of the result, but I think we can take a lot from this game and into the remaining two games.

“We still have so much to play for and we’re not just going to fall over and let this series play out.

“We’ll leave everything out there.”

Ben Stokes cuts a very flat leader.

“Yeah, obviously that dream we came here with is now over which is obviously pretty disappointing,” he said.

“Everyone is hurting and quite emotional about it. We’ve got two more games to go and that’s where the focus needs to switch to.

“We obviously came here with a goal in mind and we haven’t been able to achieve that and it hurts and it sucks but we aint gonna stop.”

When asked about the difference between the two sides, he answered “execution”.

“I think Australia have just been able to execute things on a much more consistant basis than us. Both with the ball and the bat and in the field,” he said.

“This game of cricket is based on how you bat, how you bowl and how you field and they’ve been able to out do us on a much higher level.

“We’ve been able to do it in passages and again this week thought we did incredibly well to take it to where we did in this fourth innings.

“I thought we were in for another heist this morning when Jamie and Will batted so well. But look, we can’t do what we came here to do but there’s some positives to take out of this game.”

While the skipper didn’t sound confident he would play in Melbourne, he was stoked to be there for the Ashes victory.

“It wasn’t easy today but we got it done and it’s a pretty excited changeroom in there,” he said.

“You can’t really rush things here in Australia. I think you can kind of will it to happen but it doesn’t really work that way.

“So, it’s good, old fashioned grind a lot of the time. I love the toil from all the guys today. It got a little bit closer than I would have likes but pretty happy.”

Marnus Labuschagne has spoken post match, praising the Australian’s efforts.

“I’m just so happy we could put this together,” he said.

“We didn’t have Steve there and Nathan bowled beautifully, kept us in the game, and to get over the line there was really nice.”

He also addressed his spectacular catching.

“It was one of those where it just felt like everything stuck,” he said.

“I saw them really well. The left mit felt pretty warm there. It was awesome.

“I said to Steve there, ‘I get to be Steve for a week’ and it looks like that spot’s just rubbed off on me.”

He also revealed Travis Head, who he labelled the “mayor” of Adelaide, will be in charge of celebrations.

Nathan Lyon will be the story for Australia this week after leaving the ground with a hamstring injury.

And the signs are not good with him returning on crutches.

There are still two Tests to be played in Melbourne and Sydney but with Australia now leading the series 3-0, England can’t achieve a positive result.

And to be fair, they have never looked like being able to take a game off the Australians.

Even in their best innings of fight in this match they just threw wickets away anytime they appeared to be taking control.

That shouldn’t take anything away from the Aussies, they have been outstanding without ever having their best XI on the park.