The Ashes, Match 4

Now that England has retained the Ashes, we're not as interested in the remaining matches.  Still, they just finished the fourth test match at Riverside Ground, in Chester-le-Street, England (it's a suburb near Sunderland), so here's a report on what happened.

England won the toss and elected to bat.  They didn't do very well, scoring only 238 runs in their first innings.  And then Australia came back in the bottom of the 1st to take a lead of 270-238.  England did better in their second innings, taking a lead of 568-270 into the bottom of the 2d.  At this point, things looked quite good for Australia, which needed 299 runs to win.  Things looked much better when the score was 568-438 and Australia still had eight wickets remaining.  At that point, it appeared that England's best chance was try to hang on for a draw.  But no!  Suddenly the English bowlers (mostly Stuart Broad, who took six of the last nine Australian wickets), started mowing down the Aussies like ninepins:

The third wicket fell after Australia had scored 168 runs in the inning (remember, they need 299 to win).

The fourth wicket fell after 174 runs.

The fifth wicket fell after 175 runs.

The sixth wicket fell after 179 runs.

The seventh wicket fell after 181 runs.

The eighth wicket fell after 199 runs.

The ninth wicket fell after 211 runs.

The tenth wicket fell after 224 runs.

So Australia could only score 56 runs with its last 8 wickets.  England won, 568-494.  They now lead the series with a record of 3-0-1.  The last time Australia played a complete test series against England without winning a single match was 1977.  But if the Aussies don't win the fifth match, that's exactly what will happen.