The Ashes: England staring down the barrel of 4-1 series defeat but manage to drag fifth Test into last day

England appear set to finish a horror Ashes tour on the wrong end of a 4-1 series defeat at the SCG, but have managed to drag a Test into the fifth and final day for just the second time this summer. A swift conclusion to the last game of the series appeared to be in the offing when the tourists’ injured captain Ben Stokes limped from the field inside the first 15 minutes of play yesterday, only for a fine first Test hundred from rising star Jacob Bethell to get them back into the contest. Bethell - who wasn’t considered among’s England’s best eleven for the first three tests - played several fine strokes throughout an unbeaten 142 which prompted England legend Stuart Broad to tell Channel Seven’s coverage his former side had “found a diamond” and credited by the great Ricky Ponting as “flawless” and “classy”. But after yet another self-implosion with the bat, England collapsed from 3-212 to close on 8-302 to lead by 119 runs, meaning retiring legend Usman Khawaja may yet have one last chance to bat in front of his home crowd today. Stokes was into his 28th over of an innings in which Australia went on to rack up 567 and just his second of the day when he pulled up during his run-up, promptly retrieved his cap from the umpire and headed straight for the dressing rooms. England issued a statement saying the captain was being assessed for a right adductor complaint and he dropped down the batting order from No.6 to No.8, where he managed just one before edging the part-time off-spin of Beau Webster to Steve Smith at slip. The one sour point of the Barbados-rasied 22-year-old Bethell’s magnificent performance came when he was the centre of a late run-out with wicketkeeper Jamie Smith, who appeared to share an exchange with a fan in the SCG members enclosure as he returned to the pavillion. Ahead of the start of the day’s play, former England captain Michael Vaughan decried the “cult” mentality of their current side and called for a change in their culture. “They seem to have created a cult around the way this team play and talk. A lot of it is nonsense. That has to change,” Vaughan told Fox Cricket. In his most stinging criticism so far this summer, Vaughan also said England’s Bazball approach under Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum had led to some “exciting times” but had been proven inadequate for when the stakes were at their highest. As of stumps on Wednesday, the McGrath Foundation — started by legendary cricketer Glenn McGrath and his late wife Jane, who died of breast cancer aged 42 in 2008 — had sold 402,543 virtual pink seats over the course of the game, raising more than $10 million for their mission to provide cancer care nurses. A crowd of 42,864 people packed into the SCG for the fourth day of the contest, taking the cumulative total since Sunday above 185,000.