For a while, Boxing Day 2025 felt like a re-enactment of Boxing Day 2010. We’re talking an amateur historical re-enactment, given the lower intensity and higher number of participants with private lives under investigation, but still, the broad shape of the thing was much the same. You had England choosing to bowl on a cloudy morning and finishing off the hosts in time for an early tea. The original instance lasted 42.5 overs, this repeat lasted 45.2, only 15 deliveries between them.
Related: Boxing Day Test filled with cheer and hope but nothing can be taken for granted
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Yet this year’s edition felt different for more reasons than just a higher scoring rate that yielded 152 all out versus 98 all out last time around. In 2010, England owned the day, a James Anderson swing masterclass ripping out a paralysed middle order, Chris Tremlett lopping off top and tail like a legumier preparing string beans. The rehash was a less complete bowling effort that drew a strangely faltering batting response: chop-ons and leg-side nicks and run outs, occasionally the bowling team via Josh Tongue remembering to pitch the ball up before rocketing through someone’s defences.
The biggest difference was the scoreline: a fourth Test played at 3-0 rather than 1-1, meaning a series decided rather than one thrumming with life like Frankenstein’s creation on the slab. England’s morning blast (which is not one of their electrolyte drinks) meant that as holders of the Ashes trophy 15 years ago, their bowling destruction left them one good batting innings away from keeping it, and this was a team that had declared on 517 in Brisbane and 620 in Adelaide. That’s why the Boxing Day crowd in 2010 sat in shellshocked silence at the change of innings: the danger of a series loss stared 84,000 attendees in the face.
For the current England team, a couple more catches taken or a couple fewer daft shots played in any of Perth, Brisbane, or Adelaide might have had them 2-1 down coming to Melbourne, ready to make Australian players and spectators alike nervous at the prospect of levelling up the series with one to play. But they had already blown those chances, so this time the record crowd of 94,000 mostly spent the tea break elbowing their way cheerfully to the bar in search of refreshment rather than worrying about the state of the game. With the Ashes secured, an England win here would be a sidebar.
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And in truth, given how parlous England’s batting has been all series, there was the strong chance that 152 for the home team presaged something worse to come for their guests. So it turned out. The heartbreaker for Australia in 2010 wasn’t the 98 all out on day one, it was the 157 without loss that followed it by stumps. That day, the clouds passed, the sun was out, and England’s openers bedded in. This time, the clouds passed, the sun was out, and England’s openers followed suit. Then the middle order. Then the rest.
In a single elongated session, they lost the lot inside 30 overs, making the top 10 for England’s fewest deliveries to get bowled out in an Ashes match. Australia simply put it on the spot and waited for the seaming pitch to give an assist. Mitchell Starc began the roll, Michael Neser continued it, Scott Boland all but finished it off, acting as a collective that drew edges behind, nipped balls in toward the stumps, and took catches to finish each other’s work. Jhye Richardson’s comeback match consisted of four containing overs in between watching the show.
There will be the usual palaver about whether to castigate a pitch that dared to offer movement, or the modern player for a feckless approach, or coaches for corroded defensive techniques, and nobody will produce a decisive answer. The carnage of 20 fallen wickets with a gap of 46 runs between the teams means that both remain in the match, with the result depending on who can find a way to a score of substance.
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It still feels emblematic, though, of England’s benighted tour, that even reprising one of their most famous Ashes performances through two furious sessions has still ended up with them the worse off by the end of the day.
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