Australia inflicted more misery on England with a record-breaking 77-run victory in their one-off Twenty20 match on Tuesday.
Despite missing almost half the team that humiliated England 5-0 in the Ashes Test series, Australia racked up a world-record total to leave the visitors without a win in any form of the game since arriving down under more than two months ago.
Australia’s batsmen went on the rampage, piling up 221-5 to eclipse the previous international record of 214 for five they set against New Zealand in Auckland in 2005.
England replied with 144-9, narrowly avoiding the heaviest defeat in the short history of Twenty20 internationals.
”We wanted to win and play as well as we could, but it was just a bit of fun,” Australia captain Ricky Ponting told a news conference.
”I enjoy playing this form of the game, but it’s best played when there’s not a lot riding on it.”
The home team belted 15 fours and 14 sixes, Adam Gilchrist (48) and Ponting (47) sharing a 69-run partnership for the second wicket off 29 balls.
Man-of-the-match Cameron White (40 not out) and Andrew Symonds (39 not out) also added an unbroken 66 in less than six overs.
Gilchrist, who scored a hundred off 57 balls in the Test series, bludgeoned two fours and five sixes including three maximums in a row off James Anderson.
Costly Anderson
The England paceman conceded 64 runs in his four overs.
”We went out there to win tonight and it’s disappointing we lost, but sometimes you just have to accept you’re playing against a powerful team,” said England skipper Michael Vaughan.
”That was some of the best hitting you’ll ever see; some of their sixes were clearing the ropes by 40 yards. When you’re playing the best team in the world in their own backyard, you have to expect it’s going to be hard … and once they made 221 it was always going to be tough.”
Ponting smacked three fours and two sixes while opener Matthew Hayden made a brisk 20 and the versatile Mike Hussey chipped in with 18.
Spinner Monty Panesar was the best of England’s bowlers, dismissing Gilchrist and Hussey in a four-over spell that cost 40 runs.
England’s hopes of winning were over almost as soon as they began their reply — Irish opener Ed Joyce dismissed for one and Andrew Flintoff for a duck three days after he lost the captaincy to Vaughan.
Vaughan erased major concerns about his fitness with 27 off 21 balls but England’s comparatively slow scoring left them well behind the run-rate.
Paul Nixon struck the only six of the innings in the last over while James Dalrymple top-scored with 32 off 27.
Australia and England will be joined by New Zealand in a month-long triangular one-day series starting in Melbourne on Friday. — Reuters