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 :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.
