AUSTRALIA -4-0- * ASHES * : CRICKET VICTORY

Host team's pacers run through the England batting line-up to bag a 146-run win in the 5th Test.

HOBART : Australia's fast bowlers ran through the English batting line-up to claim a comprehensive 146 run win in the fifth and final ashes Test at Hobart on Sunday, sealing a one-sided series 4-0.

After a bright 68-run opening stand chasing 271 for victory, England collapsed once again to hand the Test to the rampant Australian outfit, losing 10 wickets for 56 runs in 137 balls.

The hosts could easily have won the series 5-0, but for some bad weather and heroics from England's lower order in Sydney, when the outclassed visitors held on for a tense draw.

England had no once more in Hobart to the pace barrage of Pat Cummins, Cameron Green, Scott Boland and Mitchel Starc, who shared the wickets between them , and who took nine English wickets in the night session.

The tourists had bowled Australia out for 155 during the middle session, leaving themselves an improbable target of 271 for victory.

Rory Burns and fellow opener Zak Crawley got the tourists off to a rousing start but in the last over before tea, Burns tried to leave a ball from Green, only to chop it on, falling for 26 with the score on 68.

Dawid Malan, whose wife gave birth to their first child overnight, started well with a couple of slashing boundaries, but he fell the same way, chopping on to Green for 10 to end a disappointing Test.

Green struck again when Crawley edged the ball through to wicketkeeper AlexCarey, before Ben Stokes on five threw his wicket away when he pulled a Starc short ball to Nathan Lyon, at deep square leg.

England captain Joe Root has endured a difficult series after some bright starts, but there was nothing he could do when a Boland delivery barely bounced, shooting through and crashing into the bottom of off-stump.

The wickets continued to tumble after that with none offering any resistance and it was no surprise when Australia wrapped up the win 40 minutes before stumps.

Earlier, English paceman Mark Wood took career best figures of 6-37 in an impressive display of hostile fast bowling to at least give his side some hope of winning their first match of the tour. [AFP]