Clarke, Rogers pull up stumps in style

An Ashes series that has served up pretty much everything save for a hat-trick and a fifth day tamely reached its foregone conclusion at The Oval, with Australia earning an inconsequential win and England lifting the cherished trophy.

Clarke and Rogers speak after win

As heavy rain that is expected to take up residence for several days bore down on south London, Australia were forced to endure the dual frustrations of a three-hour weather delay and some obdurate later-order England batting before sealing their innings and 46 runs win.

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Fittingly, it was Peter Siddle who tidied up for his team on either side of the interruption to finish with 4-35 from 24.4 overs, giving him six wickets for the match that marked his return from the selection wilderness.

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Siddle celebrates another wicket // Getty Images

But the sight of Siddle taking three of the four wickets needed when the day began, finishing with Moeen Ali’s edged drive, would have proved as galling for many Australians as the showers that threatened to dampen a belated moment of triumph at the end of a ragged month.

For Siddle was the bowler that Australia so desperately sought when their team went missing at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge, and by the time the selectors agreed that his control was just as essential as the pace of the others, the Ashes had done likewise.

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Clarke receives a guard of honour from teammates // Getty Images

It took until the final day of the series for that to be made glaringly obvious.

The final day of a disappointing campaign for an Australia team that arrived in the UK almost 10 weeks ago armed with high expectations began with a perfunctory yet poignant show of emotion as the tourists took the field beneath a blanket of impenetrable cloud.

Clarke made a solo entry on to the playing arena as his teammates gathered behind the rope to allow their outgoing leader a solo moment in the limelight, during which he showed his appreciation for the warm applause from a near capacity crowd gathered for what was ultimately less than two hours of play.

Retiring Australian duo Michael Clarke and Chris Rogers shared a touching moment as they led the team out onto the ground at The Oval for the final time

The reception rose more volubly as Clarke’s fellow retiree Rogers fell into step behind him, and the pair swapped a handshake, a back slap and then the remainder of the Australia XI bounded into the picture and one by one offered their fleeting shows of thanks to mates joining them in battle for the last time.

An over into the day, Mitchell Johnson took hold of the second new ball and by the time he began his second of the morning The Oval’s floodlights warmed into life as the day, rather like the ultimate one of the famed 2005 series where Australia chased victory, grew forebodingly gloomy.

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A downpour stopped play for three hours // Getty Images

Certainly the weather proved more threatening than Johnson’s brief but wayward spell, and it was scarcely a surprise that it was Siddle – thriving in conditions that countless critics believed should have seen him play at least one Test earlier – who secured the breakthrough.

A probing in-ducker that defeated nightwatchman Mark Wood’s speculative defence to thump into the knee roll of his front pad, and then a canny review that revealed the ball would have crashed into leg stump contrary to umpire Kumar Dharmasena’s ruling left Australia with three wickets to get.

And England still 111 runs in deficit.

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So wasteful was Johnson, Clarke removed him after two overs and replaced him with Mitchell Marsh who struck the telling blow with his eighth delivery, coaxing England’s most competent remaining batsman Jos Buttler to drive with the resultant catch athletically snared at mid-off.

And so, as the weather closed in, the job of closing out the series was left to the two bowlers who were reportedly told they were within a hair’s breadth of playing on that fateful first morning at Trent Bridge when the Ashes were effectively decided, only to miss the final cut.

Clarke speaks post match

Siddle’s bowling throughout this match has served to underscore the shortsightedness of his continued exclusion from a bowling attack that was granted too few runs to play with – and played with them too loosely – when the series was up for grabs.

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From even before the first Test got underway at Cardiff more than six weeks ago, Siddle’s form was talked up by teammates including his captain who cooed that ‘nobody was able to lay a bat on him in the nets’.

But the stated preference for speed above subtlety as the criterion for selecting seamers, coupled with the crushing success at Lord’s which all but England that Australia had found their optimum XI meant Siddle’s outstanding training form remained exclusively there.

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Siddle snares the winning wicket // Getty Images

He will have to return Australia content with a place in history as the owner of the most miserly Ashes innings bowling figures by an Australian in England (of 20 overs or more) since former selection chair John Inverarity’s 3-26 from 33 overs at Headingley in 1972.

Whereas Siddle’s Test future now lies with the selectors preparedness to accept virtues other than pure speed, it is precisely that ingredient that should ensure Mitchell Marsh remains in the team for some time to come.

Marsh’s batting has been found wanting at number six in the three Tests he’s played in this campaign with an aggregate of 48 at 12 runs per innings, but his bowling has displayed more than part-time value and – as was shown when he was tapped to replace Johnson – is a genuine wicket-taking option.

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Marsh takes the wicket of Buttler // Getty Images

Which is what Australia sorely needed as the morning minutes ticked by, the rain trekked ever closer and England tailenders Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad remained stubbornly in occupation.

A drinks break at the end of the day’s first hour was greeted gladly by England’s batsmen and fans, but so impatient were the Australians to push on that the fielders were in place and Mitchell Starc at the top of his mark with ball in hand while ground staff were still re-painting the crease lines.

But 24 deliveries later, during which Moeen played and missed three times, inadvertently edged a bouncer over the ‘keepers’ head to the fence and Broad swished unsuccessfully once, the mizzle became drizzle which soon became rain and the whole thing was halted.

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The inability to seize the key moments that had so expensively cost Australia in three of the four preceding Tests symbolically returned on the soggy end note to a series that both sides had alternately played with total supremacy and utter submission.

But rarely in concert.

And never on a scheduled fifth day.