A mid-tour jaunt by the England cricket team to a Queensland beach town was covered gleefully by Australia’s tabloid newspapers, which splashed a shirtless Ben Stokes across their pages amid taunting headlines.

“On back foot, England bails to the beach”, one read. “Life’s a beach, even for the sinking Poms,” added another. “Sun’s out, runs out”, offered a third, alongside a photo of Stokes’s tattooed biceps. England’s Ashes approach is scrambling the brains of the next cricketing generation | Mark Ramprakash Read more

“Having a Bazball at Noosa!”, the top of the front page of Brisbane’'s Courier Mail declared, alongside coverage of Jamie Oliver’s best Christmas ham recipe and Australia’s controversial ban of under-16s from social media which comes into force on Wednesday.

A double

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