Live Report - Lyon injured, England clinging on

Mitchell Starc has carried Australia on his back again to hold off a brave fightback from England and seal a 3-0 series win in Adelaide.

Starc took three of the four wickets needed on the final day after Nathan Lyon limped off with a match and possibly series-ending hamstring injury, to bowl out England for 352. A brazen 60 from Jamie Smith, a brave 47 from Will Jacks and a fighting 39 not out from Brydon Carse edged England within 82 runs of a world record run chase, but Starc's will and some sensational catching from Marnus Labuschagne at slip sealed victory.

Starc finished with 3 for 62 to take his series wicket tally to 21 alongside his two half-centuries, including a critical first innings 54 in Adelaide. Scott Boland took the final wicket and deserves a lot of credit for the way he bowled in the fourth innings to maintain pressure. He had two edges go down in the final hour.

England's final day fight was too little too late. Against an Australian batting side without Steven Smith, an attack featuring Pat Cummins coming off injury and one without Lyon for most of the final day, they still could not outlast Australia. It is England's closest loss in their 16 defeats in Australia across their last 18 Tests down under without a win. That will hold little weight in the post-mortem.

Australia miss two tough chances off Scott Boland. Cameron Green drops a touch change at a very close third slip. The keeper was up for Boland. Brydon Carse defended with hard hands, the nick flew to Green's left, he dives left but unlike Marnus Labuschagne he can't hold on with one hand.

Carey stayed up for the next over from Boland. He found the edge again, this time off Jofra Archer but Carey was up to the stumps and the thick edge hits the right bicep and falls safe. Carey subsequently moves back. England are somehow still alive.

Marnus Labuschagne has done it again! Mitchell Starc finds the edge of Will Jacks, Labuschagne standing closer than Alex Carey at first slip dives to his left, the catch would have carried to Carey and he would have got two hands to it, Labuschagne flings out his left hand and takes another one-handed screamer. Australia's catching is winning them the Ashes as they limp over the line. Two wickets to win the series. England still need 98.

England are starting to believe. The Barmy Army are in full voice with Elton John's "I'm still standing". The target is under three figures. Australia have abandoned Travis Head's part-time spin after Brydon Carse hit him for six. Pace from both ends but they are not getting anything from the drop-in surface on day five.

Nerves are fraying everywhere. Umpire Nitin Menon gave Brydon Carse out lbw when Pat Cummins hit him low on the pad with a full delivery. Carse had no hesitation in reviewing. It was missing leg by a big margin. The Barmy Army are finding full voice. Australia's frustration grows. The surface is giving very little and Carse and Will Jacks are batting well. England still need a lot of runs. But it's not over.

England are still alive thanks to stubborn resistance from Will Jacks and Brydon Carse and a half-century from Jamie Smith after Nathan Lyon was ruled out of the rest of the Test with a hamstring injury.

England scored 102 for the loss of just Smith in a rain-affected first session on the final day. Smith's 60 came in a blaze just after Lyon hobbled off with a right hamstring injury. But he and England may rue a miscue to mid-on after striking four consecutive boundaries off both Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc.

Australia's quicks have beaten the bat often with the second new ball but all the pace has gone out of the pitch and Jacks and Carse have avoided nicking one. They have picked off runs consistently to whittle the target down to just 126. It still seems unlikely, but the odds have increased significantly since this morning as Australia's biggest threat in Lyon will not bowl another ball in the game.

Matt Roller adds:

Will Jacks has batted through a full session for the second time in the series, after keeping Ben Stokes company in the fourth innings in Brisbane, and has shaped up well with the bat in an unfamiliar role. Jacks is best suited to opening the batting in white-ball cricket and has an IPL century to his name but has only hit a single boundary this morning, and has defended resolutely for the most part.

Jacks is being asked to learn on the job in this series after three years out of England’s Test team and struggled with the ball: his match figures of 3 for 212 in 39 overs are a reflection of his inexperience as a red-ball bowler. But his efforts with the bat will prompt calls for him to be retained on Boxing Day even if England decide to play a specialist spinner in Shoaib Bashir, especially with only one spare batter (Jacob Bethell) in their touring party.

Cricket Australia have confirmed Nathan Lyon won't take any further part in the Test due to a right hamstring injury. He has left the ground and gone for scans. Will Jacks and Brydon Carse continue to frustrate Australia as the bowlers struggle to extract life from the day five pitch, even with a second new ball.

Read more on Lyon's injury here.

With Nathan Lyon injured, hopes were building for England. Jamie Smith started to wallop the second new ball. He thumped two boundaries off Pat Cummins including a dismissive loft down the ground to reach his first half-century of the tour. He cracked two more against Mitchell Starc the following over to race to 60. But with the pressure mounting on Australia, albeit with 150 runs still to get, Smith tried to keep going and miscued a pull from a length ball that ballooned to Cummins at mid-on to make Australia breathe a little easier again. Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting was forthright in his assessment of Smith's dismissal on Channel Seven.

"Dopey, dopey, dopey," Ponting said. "There’s another one of those moments… They didn’t need to do that. Batting was looking easy for him. A new ball, on this wicket, the best time in the game to bat, and you just go and throw it away. Right off the toe end of the bat, straight up in the air, easy catch for Cummins. It was good, but not for long enough.”

Nathan Lyon has suffered a suspected right hamstring injury and looks unlikely to bowl again in the match and looks in serious doubt for the remainder of the series.

Lyon, 38, dived to save a ball at fine leg but got up gingerly and immediately signaled to the dressing room after grabbing his right hamstring. He stopped off the field of play at fine and leg and hobbled to the rooms after exchanging a brief work with Marnus Labuschagne who patted him on the back.

Lyon suffered a series ending right calf injury in the 2023 Ashes while running for a ball in the field at Lord's in the second Test.

Lyon had taken five key wickets in the match, including three in the second innings to swing the game Australia's way. If Lyon is unable to play in the fourth Test in Melbourne, it will create an interesting selection debate about who would play as Australia's specialist spinner.

Left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann is on Australia's contract list as Australia's No.2 Test spinner and toured West Indies with the team. But he has that role as a complementary second spinner to Lyon in spin-friendly conditions overseas. Left-arm orthodox has not been as successful as off-spin in Australian conditions in recent years. Victorian offspinner Todd Murphy, who has played seven Tests including two in the 2023 Ashes as Lyon's replacement, has bowled well in Sheffield Shield cricket this summer and was Australia A's specialist spinner in the recent game against England Lions in Brisbane. Murphy also has an excellent record at the MCG. But Western Australian offspinner Corey Rocchiccioli has been the leading spinner in Shield cricket in recent years with his extra height and bounce proving a handful for Shield batters on his home ground at the WACA.

Jamie Smith and Will Jacks have resisted Nathan Lyon and Cameron Green for 40 minutes. The lights are on and some light rain is falling at Adelaide Oval with a small band of showers closing from the north-west. The Barmy Army played "Singing in the rain" and the started chanting "Off! Off! Off! Off!". Eventually the umpires agreed and the Army let out their loudest roar of the tour. The break will be very short. The ground staff have pulled the big covers on.

Nathan Lyon goes by two nicknames usually. He has long been known as "Garry", as a reference to a former Australia Football League player Garry Lyon, which is flattering to the former Melbourne player given Nathan is now the far more famous of the two Lyons. He has later become known as "the GOAT" because he is the greatest Australian Test offspinner of all-time, a title he claimed when he went past Hugh Trumble's modest career tally of 141 Test wickets. But Lyon's teammates unveiled a new one for him yesterday. Marnus Labuschagne was heard on the stump mic encouraging "Filthy Phil" in reference to Lyon's comments about being left out of the XI in Brisbane.

“I think he might have used the word last week, didn’t he? And, yeah, if you say something in this cricket team, you don’t get missed,” Alex Carey said after play on day four.

“He’s very, very much loved around the group, and takes it with a big smile on his face. He’s bowling beautifully. Yeah, there’s a few new nicknames this series.”