England won the fourth Test in Nottingham comprehensively by an innings and 78 runs at Trent Bridge and snatched back the Ashes trophy.

The victory handed England an unassailable lead in the series.

After the Ashes debacle, Australian captain Michael Clarke announced his retirement from Test cricket after the final Test. He is Australia’s 43rd Test captain and fourth highest Test run-scorer.

He was appointed Australia captain in 2011 after the retirement of Ricky Pointing.

The 26-year-old Steve Smith will take over as Australia’s Test captain following the retirement of Clarke. Opener David Warner has been appointed his deputy.

Clarke becomes the second Australian skipper after Ricky Ponting in over 120 years to lose two consecutive Ashes series in England.

Like Ricky Ponting, it seems certain he will finish his career without leading Australia to an Ashes series win on British soil.

"As captain of the team my performances have been nowhere near the level and the standard they need to be an Australian cricketer and to be captain, the boys have worked hard, I don’t blame anyone. As a team we haven’t performed as well as we needed to beat England, and as captain I certainly haven’t led from the front," admitted dejected Clarke after the fourth Test.

The 34-year-old Clarke had been under increasing pressure given his repeated failures with the bat.

He scored just 117 runs in eight innings at an average of 16.71 before the final Test.

In the past 12 months, he has played nine Tests and only once crossed 50 runs, that being the century he scored against India at Adelaide last December just weeks after the death of his close friend and former teammate Phillip Hughes.

Clarke has played 114 Tests, and captained in 46 matches, which make him the sixth most capped skipper for Australia.

Out of the 46 Tests in which Clarke captained, Australia won 23 and lost 16. The win-loss ratio is 1.43, but Australia have been such a successful team historically that Clarke’s captaincy record is one of the poorest: among the 15 Australian captains who have led in 20 or more Tests, only three have a poorer ratio -- Kim Hughes (4-13), Bob Simpson (12-12) and Bill Lawry (9-8).

Under his leadership, Australia lost exactly as many Tests as they did under Ponting, but won less than half as many -- Ponting’s Australia won 48 Tests out of 77.

Clarke scored 8,628 runs (before the final Test). Ponting (13,378), Allan Border (11,174) and Steve Waugh (10,927) are the top three batsmen for Australia.

During the Australia’s glory years from 2010 to 2013, Clarke was known as one of the most consistent run scorers.

From 2006 to 2013, Clarke was among the top batsmen in the world who scored 3000 or more runs. Only three -- Kumar Sangakkara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Younis Khan -- had a better average.

In 2012 he was more aggressive and scored 1595 runs at an average of 106.33.

Note: All figures updated before the fifth Ashes Test.