England beaten by Australia in historic Ashes defeat

England have lost the third Test in an historic Ashes defeat against Australia, who claim victory after just 11 days of cricket.

Australia retain the Ashes with an unassailable 3-0 lead as part of the five-match series in Adelaide. England were chasing a daunting 435 in the final innings to try and keep the series alive, but fell well short, being bowled out for 352.

High expectations were resting on the shoulders of captain Ben Stokes's men ahead of the series, but a string of underwhelming performances means the wait to regain the Ashes continues for two more years, when the series returns to England. Ahead of the clash, Stokes had hoped the "Bazball" approach might see the team secure a win in Australia for the first time since 2010/11 - but any hopes were swept aside after England reverted to more ‌traditional test batting and were still beaten.

The dominant nature of Australia's victory will inevitably raise questions over the futures of Stokes and Brendon McCullum as head coach. "Everyone is obviously hurting and quite emotional about it.

But we've got two more games to go and that's where the focus needs to switch to now," Stokes said. "We obviously came here with a goal in mind and we haven't been able to achieve it.

It hurts and it sucks, but we're not going to stop. "They've been able to outdo us on ‌a much higher level...

I thought we did incredibly well to take us where we did in this fourth innings. "We couldn't do what we came here to do but there was some good stuff to come out of ‌this game." Asked if he still had the energy for the captaincy, Stokes replied: "Absolutely." Speaking after the defeat, McCullum brought up the topic of preparation as one area where England may have gone wrong.

"I know that'll be something that's questioned. And when you've lost 3-0, you've got to put your hand up and say, 'maybe I didn't get that preparation right'," he told TNT Sports.

"And that's not just leading into the first game, but it's, 'could we have done more leading into game one and could we have done less leading into game two?' "It's trying to work out those things, and ultimately, you're responsible for that. You put your hand up and say 'I didn't get that right' because we've lost 3-0." The intensity and scrutiny of an Ashes series in Australia didn't catch England by surprise but the team "weren't able to deal with it.