Cricket: Australia beats England to win Ashes

England has lost the Ashes to the Australian cricket team who took an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series with victory in Perth.

13:38 17 December 2013

England has suffered three successive defeats to Australia, losing the Ashes. This is despite the maiden Test century from Ben Stokes. The loss meant Australia regaining the urn with a 150-win and an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.

England coach Andy Flower said: "I think it is fair to say with the bat we have underperformed badly. We've only got one Test century to six or seven of theirs and that's from a young all-rounder playing in his second Test match.”

"We haven't handled the pace that well and I think the pace of (Mitchell) Johnson has been really well backed up by (Ryan) Harris and (Peter) Siddle. They've been very accurate and skilful. And their off-spinner has bowled nicely, too.”

Meanwhile, Australian captain Michael Clarke praised England’s team.

"I think Ben Stokes deserves a lot of credit for the way he played. To come out and make a tough hard-fought hundred he deserves a lot of credit,"

"It certainly wasn't given to us easy but we expect that. We've known from day one that playing against England's always tough. They've got a lot of good players and we've seen that throughout this series.”