Michael Clarke hails Australian grit after swansong win

Australia’s captain Michael Clarke receives a guard of honour from his Australia teammates as he leaves the field after Australia wrap up the game on the fourth day of the fifth Ashes cricket test match between England and Australia at The Oval cricket ground in London, on August 23, 2015.

As well as Smith s second hundred of the series, which saw him become the first Australian to score more than 500 runs in an Ashes series in England since Matthew Elliott in 1997, David Warner (85), Adam Voges (76) and Mitchell Starc (58) all score fifties.

“I’d like to see the groundsmen around the world – not just here – have the courage to go with what they think is a good cricket wicket”. One team won and one team lost. The Third and Fourth Tests were both wrapped up in a little over two days, and none of the matches went to a fifth day.

“Often in these situations it’s either all doom and gloom or all wonderful, I don’t think that’s the case”.

“We have some game-changers in that squad and in the tests we’ve won we’ve really rammed home our advantage quickly”.

England’s final four second-innings wickets were taken with relative ease either side of a three-hour rain delay as the tourists won by an innings and 46 runs. They are still 74 runs behind.

In Michael Clarke’s finale, England were outplayed in all departments by the Aussies, giving the retiring skipper a chance to bow out with a win.

Cook was speaking after his side lost their last wicket just after 3pm when play resumed after a 162-minute break for rain. “It’s a fantastic country and the fans love their cricket, they love seeing England beat Australia and so they should, but to show the amount of respect they have done for me I am forever grateful”.

Clarke said he was “not silly enough” to speculate on whether selecting Siddle earlier in the series, such as at Trent Bridge where it was widely said that he would thrive, could have swayed the series result in Australia’s favour.

The hand-wringing about the nation’s inability to perform in the showpiece series started long ago and it won’t stop until 2019, when England host the World Cup and Ashes. Ian Bell is a class player, a wonderful player, and he has a big part to play.

“You can kind of understand it (playing so poorly in the last Test)”, he said.

“Chris and I made it clear this wasn’t about us, it was about us showing fight and drive”.