Australia has retained the Ashes thanks to a healthy dose of rain that washed out day five of the fourth Test at Old Trafford, allowing the tourists to salvage a draw.
Australia takes their 2-1 lead into the final Test at The Oval, which starts on Thursday, with the trophy already sewn up but still with a chance to win their first series in England in 22 years.
Australia retained the trophy with a 2-2 result in England in 2019 but have not had an outright away Ashes victory since winning the 2001 series 4-1.
Pat Cummins's team will now refocus on trying to secure a 3-1 series win after getting out of jail at Old Trafford, thanks in no small part to the weather.
The Aussies rued their performance on day one, when six batters reached at least 32, but no-one got beyond 51, with their first-innings 317 seemingly leaving plenty of runs on the table.
That was made all the more painful when England's batters has no such struggles, with opener Zak Crawley's 189 off 182 leading the way to 592 all out, comfortably the highest total of this series.
But an uncharacteristically slow pursuit of a big lead on the morning of day three, while demoralising to Australia and keeping them out of the running, may have cost England.
Rather than declare, they batted until halfway through day three to build a mammoth 275-run lead and give Jonny Bairstow a look at a century that he ultimately fell one run short of.
But that left the door open for forecast rain to have an impact, and it did.
Five of the last six sessions of the match were completely erased by the weather, although there was enough time for Marnus Labuschagne to score his first ton of the series on day four.
Both teams arrived at Old Trafford on day five with different plans in place — England to take five wickets in however many overs they got, Australia to survive until play was called off.
Only Australia's plan had any chance of being enacted though, with a brief break in the rain before a rescheduled post-lunch start the only glimpse of potential play we saw.
Australia won the World Test Championship final against India last month, and won Ashes clashes at the traditional finale venue in 2015 and 2001, but their last win before that was way back in 1972.
Only seven of 38 Ashes Tests at the venue have fallen in Australia's favour.
Look back at how the fifth Test petered out or check out our full scorecard.
So, Australia keep hogging the Ashes for a while longer, but in such strange circumstances as to feel utterly nonplussed.
The Oval will still have plenty of spice in it, but regardless of what happens, Australia will lift the Urn.
We'll be back then to cover it, but until then, for Simon and Dean, I'll sign off.
Don't forget to keep an eye on ABC Sport for all our Ashes coverage, as well as the Women's World Cup content, which is going off chops.
Thanks and good night!
A lot of players in this squad were in England in 2019 and had the "little bit empty" feeling of retaining but not "winning" the Ashes, so they don't want another 2-2 result.
"Our preference is to come over here and win the Ashes, but it's something the group should be proud of.
"We all want to win it. Whatever happened today doesn't change anything."
"It's a tough one to take.
"To get the wrong side of the weather is a tough one, but I guess it's all part of the journey.
"We've got a lot of pride to play for at The Oval."
Usman Khawaja is speaking to Channel Nine now.
He acknowledges England completely outplayed Australia in this game, but Australia's victories in the first two games allow them the privilege of front-running.
"We earned the right to be in this position now.
"[But] we did come here to win the Ashes.
"We were in the same position last time [in 2019] and couldn't win it. So [winning at The Oval] is going to be the big one for us.
"For a lot of us it's going to be our last Ashes series in England."
The umpires have broken the news that today is a complete washout and the fourth Test at Old Trafford ends in an anti-climactic draw.
Australia takes it's unbeatable 2-1 lead into the fifth game at the Oval and that's all she wrote.
The umpires have been speaking to the captains. Expect big news soon.
I understand the game can go on until 1930 today based on the rules on time lost, but the forecast has rain continuing for the next two hours which takes things past 1900 even before the covers come off, let alone the ground made reasonable for play. When do the umpires formally consider calling the match off?
- Michael
It's getting to be around that time.
Even if the rain suddenly stopped, getting the field dry will take a long time, then you'd want at least, what, an hour to realistically take five wickets?
You'd have to say we're running out of time.
A lot of England supporters seem to be high on their own supply when it comes to assessing who has been winning and losing the series. I guess they feel a little let down given they were expecting to win the Ashes, but this 'moral victory' stuff is hilarious.
- Scott
The fact of the matter is, it felt like the momentum of this series had truly flipped.
Of course Headingley was a close-run thing, but this game was just so one-sided and the Aussie bowlers looked without answers in the face of powerful English batting.
So, yes, Australia deserves this retention because they won those first two Tests straight-up, but you can understand English fans feeling some kind of way about it because it did feel like they were suddenly very on top of things and ready to mount the comeback.
Personally, I'd have thought the ECB would consider a different location for the 5th test given the oval's already hosted the test final this English summer. For example, I'd have liked to have seen how bazball fares on a postage stamp of an international cricket ground like Sofia Gardens in Cardiff (tiny straight boundaries!) So I'm wondering, is there anywhere else you'd like to see the Ashes visit in the UK or even Australia?
- Dylan
That's an interesting question, Dylan.
England will host the Ashes at the tenth different venue next time around when the Rose Bowl gets a go.
There is some controversy about the locations of the 2027 series given Leeds and Manchester have been left off, although both will return in 2031.
In terms of where would be fun for Ashes matches to take place in the UK ... there aren't too many grounds big enough in the UK any more that have not already been used.
England won the only Ashes Test to be held in Durham at the Riverside ground, so maybe there would be good...
In terms of Australia, when the Gabba is out of action for Olympics prep it will be interesting to see what Cricket Australia does. Will Carrara get a Test?
I live in Manchester and I can tell you this rain is quite heavy and set in. I am disappointed we arent going to see another close game, but please we will at least retain The Ashes. What time will the umpires call it off?
- Sean
That's not good news, Sean.
As for the timing of an abandonment, I'm guessing pretty soon to be honest.
It's 4:30pm local time now, or approaching that, and unless they start getting some of the covers off soon and mopping up, they'll run out of time.
Surely it won't be long now.
Those that are not playing cricket on the concourse are making their way home.
They don't think they'll see any play and it is desperately hard to see that there could be any other outcome here.
Australia have lost this test match in every way except on paper. As a result they now must win at the Oval in order to truly feel the success of goal achievement. Otherwise they are going to feel like Apollo Creed after his first fight against the Italian Stallion, with a win but not victorious.
- Paul Vella
There’s a lot of chat of bringing Murphy back in. Just wondering, how does the Oval pitch usually play ? Wouldn’t make sense to bring him in if they present us with a green top
- Sammy
That's a great point, Sammy.
As I'm sure you remember, India opted not to select number on ranked Test bowler Ravichandran Ashwin in their World Test Championship final side, with Ravindra Jadeja the sole spinner.
Jadeja got through 18 overs in the first innings (14 per cent of the overs bowled) for 1-56 in the first innings, while Nathan Lyon took 1-19 off just four overs in the first innings.
In the second innings, Jadeja got through 23 overs (a whopping 27 per cent of the total overs bowled) taking 3-58.
Lyon took 4-41 from 15.3 overs, just under a quarter of the total overs.
Both spinners were leading wicket takers in their sides second innings.
In total, the two spinners accounted for 17.8 per cent of the total overs, took 26 per cent of the wickets and went for just 13.7 per cent of the runs.
In other words, they both bowled very well.
So, in short, spin was important in the last Test played at The Oval - which I guess means it boils down to how much trust Pat Cummins has in his inexperienced offy.
And given how he was (not)used in Headingley, there's not much trust there.
We have just gone back to the Channel 9 studio at Old Trafford and there is so much water on the ground, puddling around the edge of the covers in big areas of standing water.
I just can't see there being any play to be honest.
But, we still wait because England do not want to give this up until they are absolutely certain there will be no play.
Any comment on the accuracy of Met Office vs Accuweahther? Who's winning the forecast battle?
- Mark
Dean has been very excited about the prospect of investigating the weather websites from the UK and has spent a good while attempting to decypher them.
Here's his view on the two different options.
Met Office gets some points back for going hard on the pessimism today. Accuweather left the door open for a couple of periods of dryness that they have since backtracked on. Both are now in agreement that it's going to tip down all afternoon.
Well there you go.
Boland hasn't quite made an impact this series I reckon Neser is worth a crack.
- Bart
I actually think Warner should play next test. Broad deserves the chance to tie the record.
- LW
So say our friends at the BBC.
Best continue to entertain ourselves in other ways then, like the patrons in Manchester are.
Matt Short for Warner, Murphy for Green, Neeser or Boland for Cummins, Smith captain since he's been defacto for a while....
- Cappenjack
I don't think he's in the squad as it happens, Cappenjack, so that's unlikely.
The 27-year-old right hander has a First Class average of 35.48 from 50 matches for Victoria.
He's been playing for Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket of late, alongside fellow Aussie Moises Henriques.
He scored 80 against Texas Super Kings in Dallas, winning player of the match, which is a sentence I never thought I'd write in a Test cricket blog.
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