Five Ashes charts: the numbers that show how Australia got the better of England
The Ashes are over, and the post-mortems have begun.Some may point to a lack of preparation, uneven pitches or a mid-tour Noosa bender for England’s failures, and wonder what might have been if only one or two chances were taken.But in a series won quickly and then – despite an MCG blip – comprehensively, Australia did enough to retain the urn.Age is catching up with many of Pat Cummins’s team but their time has not yet come.This summer has instead been remarkable for the historic brilliance of the home side’s senior players.
Travis Head’s tally of 629 runs was more than 200 higher than the second-most prolific batter, Joe Root, and the Australian accrued them in just 720 balls – just 34 more than the Englishman despite the gap in runs.Only 17 batters have ever scored more runs in an Ashes series, and just six have done so in the past four decades.None have done so with anything like Head’s strike rate of 87.While his charges appeared happy to swing away, England captain Ben Stokes was unusual in his apparent rejection of attacking cricket.Stokes has never been as explosive at the crease as the likes of Ben Duckett and Harry Brook.
However, his valiant but laboured and ultimately futile resistance in the first innings in the decisive Adelaide Test, where he scored 83 off 198, was the tombstone atop of the grave of Bazball,Mitch Starc started the series with a bang, sending Crawley back to the sheds in the first over of the series in Perth, on the way to picking up seven wickets in the innings,It only continued from there, and Starc finished the Ashes with 31 wickets at a slightly better clip than Mitchell Johnson’s legendary 2013-14 Ashes,Steve Smith became the second most prolific run scorer in Ashes history, overtaking legendary English cricketer Jack Hobbs,Smith’s series included three not-outs in low-scoring games and a hundred on his home ground in Sydney.
Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey finished the series with 27 catches and one stumping – just one dismissal behind Brad Haddin’s Test record.Carey drew accolades for his dexterity and skill in standing up to the stumps, even when facing fast bowling.This proved an important strategic counter to the aggressive style of play employed by England, making it far riskier for their batters to play outside of the crease.
Stephen Colbert on ICE killing of Minnesota woman: ‘A senseless yet entirely predictable tragedy’
Late-night hosts expressed outrage over the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) officer in Minneapolis.Stephen Colbert opened Thursday’s Late Show on a somber note, following the killing of Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. “It’s a senseless yet entirely predictable tragedy,” said Colbert. “And our hearts go out to Renee Good’s loved ones, friends and the community where it happened.“By now we’ve all seen the video,” he continued, referring to multiple videos shot by witnesses which show Good’s car appearing to turn away from the officer, who then fires shots into the side of her vehicle as she drove
‘She will go down as one of the best’: the rise of Jessie Buckley
Hamnet, Chloé Zhao’s film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel about William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes (or Anne) Hathaway, is a tender meditation on love and grief. Charting the couple’s anguish over the death of their 11-year-old son – said to have inspired the play Hamlet – it has moved audiences to tears and united critics in their praise.The film’s emotional force is carried by the Irish actor and singer Jessie Buckley, who portrays Hathaway (opposite Paul Mescal’s Shakespeare) with a rawness and intimacy that has already earned her a Critics’ Circle award for best actress, and marked her out as a leading contender for the Golden Globes, Baftas and Oscars. The Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw called her “unselfconsciously beguiling”, while Rolling Stone predicted audiences “will be talking about Jessie Buckley’s performance for years”.“[Agnes] was the full story of what I understand a woman to be,” Buckley, 36, said recently
Almost 50 writers boycott Adelaide festival after it dumps pro-Palestine academic Randa Abdel-Fattah
The Adelaide festival has pulled down part of its website as dozens of speakers said they were boycotting writers’ week, after Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah was dumped from the lineup with the board citing “cultural sensitivity” concerns in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.The page promoting the schedule of authors, journalists, academics and commentators was “unpublished” on Friday following widespread condemnation of the board’s decision to remove Abdel-Fattah.“In respect of the wishes of the writers who have recently indicated their withdrawal from the writers’ week 2026 program, we have temporarily unpublished the list of participants and events while we work through changes to the website,” the festival posted online.By Friday afternoon, 47 participants had withdrawn, with more believed to be coordinating their exit announcements with fellow speakers.Writers Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein, Miles Franklin winner Michelle de Kretser, authors Drusilla Modjeska and Melissa Lucashenko along with Stella award-winning poet Evelyn Araluen were boycotting the event
Seth Meyers on Trump officials justifying Venezuela assault: ‘Lamest dorks on the planet’
Late-night hosts mocked the Trump administration’s bullish rhetoric on Greenland after the surprise takeover of Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela.“If you were wondering how the rest of the world feels about Trump claiming he has unilateral power to attack a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader, it turns out they’re not exactly thrilled,” said Seth Meyers on Wednesday’s Late Night, five days after the Trump administration deposed Maduro and brought the Venezuelan president and his wife to New York to face federal drug-trafficking charges.Top UN officials warned that the shock military intervention most likely violated international law and constituted a dangerous precedent.“So there’s deep concern within the international community over Trump’s claim that the US now runs Venezuela,” Meyers explained. “This a fraught moment that requires sophisticated diplomacy from a seasoned and experienced statesman
Singer-songwriter Bill Callahan: ‘I’m not a craftsman – I’m more of a drunk professor who likes coincidence and mistakes’
Preceding the release of My Days of 58, the Americana legend once known as Smog discusses his Yorkshire youth, why Spotify is like the mafia and the bleak state of AIWe got married to [Smog’s] Our Anniversary. When you write songs, do you think about how listeners might carry them into their own lives, or do the songs stop being yours after they are done? VanearleWhen I wrote [2019’s] Watch Me Get Married, I thought maybe people would have that as their wedding song. But mostly it’s inconceivable what people are gonna do with a song. I don’t think about it too much because there are 100,000 places where it’s gonna live. Have I ever heard about any inappropriate uses of songs? I think having Our Anniversary as a wedding song is a little surprising, but maybe they’re realists
Adelaide festival dumps prominent academic Randa Abdel-Fattah over ‘cultural sensitivity’ concerns after Bondi attack
The Adelaide festival has removed prominent academic and Palestine advocate Randa Abdel-Fattah from its lineup citing concerns over “cultural sensitivity” after a review undertaken in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.The festival covers arts, music, talks and theatre and includes Adelaide’s annual Writers’ Week next month, where Abdel-Fattah was due to appear for the second time after hosting a number of panels and sessions in 2023.In a statement on Thursday, the festival’s board said it had been “shocked and saddened by the tragic events at Bondi” and the “significant heightening of both community tensions and the community debate”.“As the Board responsible for the Adelaide Festival organisation and all Adelaide Writers’ Week events, staff, volunteers and participants, we have today advised scheduled writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah that the Board has formed the judgment that we do not wish to proceed with her scheduled appearance at next month’s Writers’ Week,” it said.Within hours of the board’s announcement, Abdel-Fattah issued her own statement, accusing the festival board of “blatant and shameless” anti-Palestinian racism and censorship
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