{"id":654884,"date":"2025-12-26T00:02:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T00:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/654884\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T00:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T00:02:19","slug":"england-wins-the-toss-and-sends-australia-in-to-bat-in-the-4th-ashes-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/654884\/","title":{"rendered":"England wins the toss and sends Australia in to bat in the 4th Ashes test"},"content":{"rendered":"

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and sent Australia in to bat in overcast conditions in Friday\u2019s fourth Ashes test at the sold-out Melbourne Cricket Ground.<\/p>\n

Australia recalled Jhye Richardson and Michael Neser as part of an all-pace attack for the match.<\/p>\n

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A top temperature of 18 degrees Celsius (65 Fahrenheit) was forecast with the cloudy conditions expected to suit pace bowlers on a green-tinged pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cNice coverage of grass,\u201d Stokes said at the toss. \u201cNow it\u2019s about executing the plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

England lost each of the first three tests to allow Australia to retain the Ashes<\/a> in just 11 days of on-field action.<\/p>\n

England named its team on Wednesday with the big news the loss of star bowler Jofra Archer<\/a> for the rest of the series, including the fifth and final test starting Jan. 4 in Sydney.<\/p>\n

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Jacob Bethell, 22, who has played four tests for England, replaces dumped Ollie Pope and Gus Atkinson takes the place of Archer.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Lineups:<\/p>\n

Australia: Travis Head, Jake Weatherald, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith (captain), Usman Khawaja, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jhye Richardson, Scott Boland.<\/p>\n

England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jacob Bethell, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jamie Smith, Will Jacks, Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP cricket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/cricket<\/a><\/p>\n

Greg Buckle, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and sent Australia in to bat in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[155853,186,43331,748,17892,393,4884,63527,191737,1464,165711,200320,200319,16,15,85691],"class_list":{"0":"post-654884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-ashes-test","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ben-stokes","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-cameron-green","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-jacob-bethell","16":"tag-jhye-richardson","17":"tag-melbourne","18":"tag-michael-neser","19":"tag-overcast-conditions","20":"tag-toss","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-usman-khawaja"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115782939009664265","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}