Sydney: Australia completed a 5-0 Ashes series whitewash with a 281-run victory inside three days of the fifth test at the Sydney Cricket Ground as England capitulated to be all out for 166 chasing 448.
Ryan Harris and Mitchell Johnson, whose 37 wickets earned him player of the series, again decimated the England batting lineup on Sunday with a ferocious spell of fast bowling which ended England's second innings in less than two and a half hours.
"We wanted to make sure the pressure we built in Brisbane and Adelaide, that we kept it up all series," said man-of-the-match Harris.
It was the sixth time in ten innings this series that England had failed to make 200, with Sunday's performance perhaps the meekest of all. Opener Michael Carberry made 43 and there was some lusty late hitting from Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad but no real resistance.
"It's probably a culmination of the whole 4 1/2 test matches," Cook said of Sunday's rapid surrender. "If it was a boxing match, it probably would have been stopped, wouldn't it."
