Andrew Caddick snared seven second innings wickets as England won the fifth Ashes cricket test by 225 runs yesterday, preventing a 5-0 clean sweep and ending Australia's 22-match unbeaten stretch at home.
Set 452 to win when Nasser Hussain declared the England second innings closed at 452 for nine late Sunday, Australia was dismissed for 226 seven overs after the lunch interval on the last day.
It was Australia's first test match loss at home since its 12-run defeat to England at Melbourne in 1998 to 1999.
It was England's first win in a first-class match on tour and was a positive finish after test losses in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne.
Caddick took the last two wickets needed after lunch, having Brett Lee caught behind after a whirlwind 46 and bowling Stuart MacGill for one.
The 34-year-old paceman returned 7-94 in the second innings and, for the first time, 10 for the match to lift his haul to 20 wickets in tests and 22 on tour.
Hussain said Australia had played the better cricket throughout the summer and was the strongest combination in world cricket.
South Africa edged Australia for No. 1 in the test rankings with its series win against Pakistan this week, the higher rating due to weight of test series played.
``If [Australia's] is not the best side in the world, then we've got problems again this summer against South Africa,'' Hussain said.
The England skipper said winning the last match didn't make up for losing the series.
``It's the same old story, we lost it 4-1 -- that's the bottom line,'' he said. ``But it's been a very enjoyable [end] -- a great test match, one of the best I've played in.''
He said avoiding the 5-0 sweep hadn't been as important as securing a win for England.
``I don't believe in either forecasting on the future or looking back too much. I believe in trying to play every match as well as you can -- we played better and we won.''
Waugh said England deserved its win in Sydney after its best performance in three months.
``You certainly outplayed us and there's a lot of positive signs there for the future,'' said Waugh. The test attracted 181,778 spectators over five days, the second-highest attendance ever for a test match in Sydney.
Waugh said the Australians had come into the series finale a bit flat after eight tests in 12 weeks. ``It's hard to maintain that sort of intensity and quality over a long period of time. In this we just weren't good enough ... and England capitalized a lot better on their opportunities.''
Any chance of Australia becoming only the second team to sweep an Ashes series 5-0 eroded when Caddick removed Justin Langer (3) and Ricky Ponting (11) and Matthew Hoggard trapped Matt Hayden (2) lbw.
The Australians resumed yesterday at 91 for three, still 361 in arrears. Andy Bichel, who was sent in as a night watchman at the fall of the first wicket, didn't add to his overnight score of 49 when he was trapped lbw in Caddick's first over of the morning, giving the England paceman his third wicket.
Stephen Waugh's first innings heroics deserted him when he chopped a Caddick ball onto his stumps and was out for six as Australia slumped to 99 for five.
Waugh, who surpassed 10,000 test runs and matched Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record 29 test centuries with his 102 in the first innings, stroked Caddick for a boundary on his first ball but was out 10 balls later.
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