ADELAIDE, Australia — Australia retained the Ashes 2025 urn on Sunday, beating England by 82 runs in the third Test to take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series. Set a world-record 435-run target, England were bowled out for 352 as Mitchell Starc struck late and Scott Boland finished the job, Dec. 21.
Ashes 2025: Starc delivers, Carey and Head build the cushion
England resisted long enough to make Adelaide Oval uneasy. Will Jacks and Jamie Smith dug in through the morning, but the second new ball turned the chase back Australia’s way. Starc removed Smith for 60, then had Jacks edging to slip for 47 — a chance turned into a highlight by Marnus Labuschagne‘s flying, one-handed catch.
Boland later had Josh Tongue edge behind to end the match, while Pat Cummins — back leading the side after missing the first two Tests — finished with six wickets across the game.
Starc played down the pre-series talk around Australia’s age profile. “We do laugh at some of the comments that get back to us about how old we are,” he said, according to Reuters. Stokes, asked about the Ashes 2025 setback, was similarly direct: “It hurts and it sucks.”
Chase: England 352 all out (target 435 runs).
Match totals: Australia 371 and 349; England 286 and 352, per the ESPN scorecard and report.
Player of the match: wicketkeeper Alex Carey (106 and 72).
Carey’s runs, and Travis Head‘s attacking 170 in Australia’s second innings, left England chasing history. Cricket Australia’s match report noted Labuschagne’s catch and Starc’s closing spell as the defining swings of the final day.
Australia did lose Nathan Lyon to a hamstring complaint while fielding, but the hosts still had enough depth to finish the job. ABC’s live coverage noted the Ashes 2025 contest was decided after only 11 days of play — as fast as any Ashes series has been settled since 1921.
Ashes 2025 context: continuity from 2023 and 2021-22
The decisive 3-0 margin means the final two Tests are now about pride, World Test Championship points and selection headaches. England have not won an Ashes series since 2015 and have not won the urn in Australia since 2010-11; this tour has again shown how quickly pressure builds when wickets fall in clusters.
Australia came into Ashes 2025 as holders after retaining the trophy in England in 2023, when rain at Old Trafford washed out the final day and sealed the urn, as described in an ABC report from that match. England’s previous tour ended with Australia winning 4-0, capped by the Hobart Test in 2022, detailed in ESPNcricinfo’s match report.
Two Tests remain — starting with the Boxing Day match in Melbourne — and England’s immediate task is avoiding another whitewash. Australia, though, have already drawn the line under Ashes 2025: the urn is staying put.
