After a frenetic opening day at the MCG in which both teams lost badly, Australia narrowly edged England.
Published December 26, 2025
Australia narrowly came out on top at the end of a chaotic first day of the fourth Ashes Test after suffering an unusual 20-wicket loss in front of a record crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.
Australia’s night watchman Scott Boland, along with Travis Head, had four scoreless innings, and the hosts maintained a 46-point lead over England with two scoreless innings and four scoreless innings.
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With England bowled out for 110 to Australia’s first innings 152, this was the highest single-day wicket count at the MCG since 25 fell in the 1902 Ashes.
After England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and decided to bat first, Josh Tan skittled Australia with a career-best 5-45 on the grass pitch, but then the tourist batsmen suffered an even worse collapse.
Despite the constant loss of wickets, a crowd of 93,442 watched, surpassing the 2015 World Cup final cricket single-day stadium record of 93,013.
England, who have already lost three games in a row and are now eliminated in the series, went into the match in doubt after reports that some of their players behaved like a “stag party” during their trip to Noosa between the second and third Tests.
However, they were happy with their work on the field early on and could have run through Australia in 45.2 overs to deliver tea early.
But alarm bells were soon sounded when Australian seafarers mutinied and that supreme command collapsed.
Opener Ben Duckett got two out with a loose, unbalanced drive against Mitchell Starc, sending a leading edge straight to Michael Nether at mid-on.
New No. 3 Jacob Bethel, who replaced Ollie Pope who dropped out, scored just one run before being taken behind by Nether, but opening pitcher Zach Crowley slipped and beat Steve Smith for Starc, resulting in five losses.
Root then went for a 15-ball duck, his second of the series, with Nessel behind him.
Harry Brook and Stokes put together a 50-run partnership to reduce the gap to 86 runs, but then England were blown out of the water by a Borland triple.
The pacer trapped Brook LBW for 41, threw a swinging Jamie Smith into the gate for two, and caught all-rounder Will Jacks for five to take 3-11.
This left England at 77 for 7, with Stokes now shouldering the burden at the back. However, he was again unable to play a relief role, dropping 16 points by fending off Nessel, who flew over Smith’s head on the first slide.
When Kearse was caught for four, Nether grabbed the fourth wicket and swiped at Boland at long leg.
Gus Atkinson and Tan’s 19 runs in a 10-wicket stand looked heroic after what had happened so far, as did Nessel’s 35 which was the top score for the hosts.
But it all ended when Cameron Green bowled Atkinson for 28, just in time for the England bowler to take the Australian batsmen wicketless for one over before the stumps.
