England off to flier in quest for Ashes

While a euphoric Rose Bowl toasted England's cricketers after they defeated Australia by 100 runs in the Twenty20 international yesterday, both captains insisted it ought not to affect the summer to come. But Michael Vaughan and Ricky Ponting admitted it might.

While a euphoric Rose Bowl toasted England's cricketers after they defeated Australia by 100 runs in the Twenty20 international yesterday, both captains insisted it ought not to affect the summer to come. But Michael Vaughan and Ricky Ponting admitted it might.

"It's nice to win, it's nice to beat Australia, but I wouldn't read too much into it," Vaughan said. But he added: "I hope it becomes a habit. To beat the No 1 team in the world at any form of cricket is a good achievement by the team. We worked well for it. We had a game-plan and we stuck to it."

"England outplayed us everywhere," said Ponting, the Australian captain. "But I don't think it will do them any good or us any harm. Hopefully it will do something for us - it will make us more determined next time. We're better off laughing this one off."

England - batting steadily, then accelerating - scored 179 for 8 off their 20 overs with Paul Collingwood scoring 46 off 26 balls. Australia reached 23 without loss, but then lost seven wickets for eight runs, collapsing to 31 for 7. Ponting, Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke all made ducks with Darren Gough on another hat-trick at one point. Debutant Jon Lewis took 4 for 24 in his four overs.

"Not much went right from the start of the game," Ponting said. "We got behind in our overs so we had to rush them. Then the batting was very ordinary. It was a decent total to chase in this form of cricket and maybe we got carried away but we were not all out to extravagant shots."

The teams meet again at Bristol on Sunday over 50 overs in the NatWest Series. Beforehand Australia play Somerset tomorrow and England meet Bangladesh at The Oval on Thursday.

"We are delighted to have won but realise 50-over cricket is totally different to this and five-day cricket is totally different to one-day," Vaughan said. "But we are a confident team and we will take this confidence into the weekend."

Ponting said: "It takes time to get back to the pace of the game at international level but we will have no excuses for not being fully prepared by the weekend."