"RIP Bazball" Memes Flood Internet As Australia Humble England 3-0 To Retain Ashes
Fans didn't hold back on social media as Australia clinched the Ashes title 3-0 against England, with two games to spare.
Australia retained the Ashes with two matches to spare after paceman Mitchell Starc took three of the last four wickets to blunt England's defiant comeback Sunday in a tense fifth-day finish to the third cricket test. Australia started Day 5 needing four wickets to retain the Ashes, with England resuming at 6-207 and still 228 runs away from the victory target of 435 that would have required a world record to achieve. “Feels pretty awesome,” Australia captain Pat Cummins said of the 82-run win at the Adelaide Oval. “We got it done.” As fans in Australia celebrated their team's dominance in the 5-match series, England fans didn't hesitate in blasting Bazball on social media.
The Sunday morning was brutal for English cricket as Australia retained the Ashes trophy, taking an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series. The fallout has been immediate and scathing, with "Bazball", the ultra-aggressive philosophy championed by Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, coming under the heaviest fire since its inception in 2022.
Goodbye Bazball #AUSvENG pic.twitter.com/HbL6mmSfD7
— Lachy (@Lachy_Steele) December 21, 2025
RIP BAZBALL pic.twitter.com/tecCvoxbeb
— Steve Smith (@steve__smith__) December 21, 2025
England's second best start to an Ashes in Australia this century.
— Paul Dennett (@PaulDennett_) December 21, 2025
Bazball is working. #theashes pic.twitter.com/BuTDauRvEV
The Bazball Revolution: pick players you like, regardless of form, indefinitely, one dimensional batting, one dimensional bowling, little or no warm up games, produce arrogant + entitled players, make ridiculous statements, get support from a client press, never win a big series.
— Cricket Reformation (@CricketRef) December 21, 2025
Australia skipper Pat Cummins missed the first two tests while recovering from a back problem, with Steve Smith leading the team to two eight-wicket wins. Smith was ruled out of the third test about a half-hour before the toss because of vertigo.
“You can't really rush things here in Australia, it doesn't work that way,” Cummins said of the test going the distance. “It's a good old fashioned grind a lot of the time and, yeah, I love the toil from all the guys today.
“It got a little bit closer than I would have liked, but pretty happy.”
Starc took the only wicket in the morning session — Jamie Smith running out of patience and caught by Cummins for 60 — as England piled on 102 runs.
England's rally had narrowed the Ashes equation at lunch on the last day: Australia needed three wickets to clinch the old urn in Adelaide and England needed 126 runs to keep the five-match series alive.
No team had scored more than West Indies' 418 (in a three-wicket win over Australia in 2003) in the fourth innings to win a test.
But England skipper Ben Stokes later said he felt like his team were “on for another heist” in the morning session and was confident of achieving a record total.
With England's lower-order doggedly mounting pressure and Australia's attack missing veteran spinner Nathan Lyon, who limped off the field with an injured hamstring, the leading bowler in the series delivered for the hosts.
Stokes said he was happier with the resilience shown by his team this week, despite ultimately surrendering the series in 11 days.
“This is going to hurt quite a bit,” Stokes said. “Obviously that dream that we came here with is now over, which is obviously incredibly disappointing.
“But look, we've got two more (tests) to go on and that's where the focus needs to switch to now.”
Melbourne will host the Boxing Day test starting Dec. 26 and Sydney will host the fifth test in the New Year.
With AP Inputs
England Cricket Team
Australia Cricket Team
Ben Stokes