Australia continued their dominance over England with a record-breaking 77-run victory in their one-off Twenty20 match on Tuesday.
Despite missing almost half the team that humiliated the visitors 5-0 in the Ashes Test series, Australia racked up a world-record total to leave the tourists winless in all forms of the game since arriving Down Under more than two months ago.
Australia's batsmen went on the rampage, piling up 221 for five to eclipse the previous international record of 214 for five they set against New Zealand in Auckland in 2005.
England replied with 144 for nine, narrowly avoiding the heaviest defeat in the short history of Twenty20 internationals.
The home team belted 15 fours and 14 sixes, Adam Gilchrist (48) and Ricky Ponting (47) sharing a 69-run partnership for the second wicket off 29 balls while Cameron White (40 not out) and Andrew Symonds (39 not out) 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 went for 64 runs in his four overs.
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 the England 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 Michael 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 one-day triangular series starting in Melbourne on Friday.
