9th Match,Australia v England, NatWest Series, Statistical Highlights

It was the 1726th ODI in cricket history

Jun 22, 2001, 12:00 AM

It was the 1726th ODI in cricket history.

It was Australia's 486th and England's 331st match.

It was the 70th match between these two sides. The record now reads : Australia 37,England 31,tied one and abandoned one.

Umpires David Constant and George Sharp were officiating in their 33rd and 24th match respectively.

Robert Croft and Alan Mullally were playing their 50th match. They became 21st and 22nd Englishman to reach this milestone. A total of 232 players have now made 50 or more appearances in shorter version of the game.

Glenn McGrath has now taken 28 wickets in 17 matches in England which equals the Shane Warne's record for Australia. Incidentally West Indian Andy Roberts with 26 wickets from 21 games holds the record of most wickets by a visiting player in England.

Gilchrist's innings (80) was the highest by an Australian wicketkeeper against England . This obliterated Richard Robinson's 70 at this same ground on June 6,1977.It was also the third highest innings by a wicketkeeper against England in all matches after Sri Lankan Romesh Kaluwitharana's 102* at Colombo SSC on March 27,2001 and West Indian Junior Murray's 86 at this same ground on May 26,1995.

Australia won the match with 119 balls to spare. This was the England's third heaviest defeat in terms of balls spared by the opposing side while achieving the winning target. Interestingly all the three instances have come against Australia. The accompanying table lists England's worst such defeats :

Balls	Winner	Total	Loser	Total	Venue	Date
188	Aus	94-6	Eng	93	Headingley	18-06-1975
147	Aus	95-4	Eng	94	Melbourne	07-02-1979
119	Aus	177-2	Eng	176	The Oval	21-06-2001
102	Pak	84-2	Eng	81-9	Edgbaston	03-09-1974
97	SL	166-0	Eng	165-9	Colombo (SSC)	27-03-2001
88	SL	183-2	Eng	180	Moratuwa	20-03-1993
84	WI	207-4	Eng	202-8	Scarborough	26-08-1976
76	WI	190-2	Eng	189-9	The Oval	07-09-1973

England has now suffered defeat in 11 consecutive matches. England's last win in an ODI had come in the first match of three match series against Pakistan at Karachi on October 24,2000 while chasing a target of 300 plus. England then lost the remaining two matches on that series, lost all three against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka and then six in a row in this NatWest Series.

Australia has now beaten England in seven matches in a row since the Carlton & United World Series Cup match at Adelaide on January 26,1999. It is Australia's best run against England. The previous best winning streak for Australia against England was of five matches from June 6,1981 to January 23,1983. However it is still not a record in Australia-England matches. England had beaten Australia in eight consecutive matches from December 8,1979 to June 4,1981.

England bowed out of the series without registering a win despite playing as many as six games. The only other similar instance of England not winning a game in a competition comprising of at least three teams (excluding those played on knock out basis) had come in 1984-85 World Championship of Cricket in Australia when England lost all its three matches.

Ricky Ponting was winning his 11th Man of the Match award - his second against England.

England vs Australia Kennington Oval