View from Down Under

Anyone turning up for the last day of this series might be forgiven for thinking England has a formidable attack and its opponent a feeble batting order.

Latecomers and recent arrivals from Mars saw Andrew Caddick steaming in like Curtly Ambrose and his captain setting fields with more slips than can be expected from a drunken newsreader. Here was a team rampant and another defending desperately or rushing with the air of men wanting another schooner before closing time. Here was a team triumphant and another doomed.

Anyone remembering the first day of the series in Brisbane must have found these events bewildering, for then a nervous visiting captain invited his hosts to bat on a plumb pitch and this same Caddick dropped his deliveries gently upon the surface.

Peter Roebuck The Age (Melbourne)

Steve Waugh got his fairytale farewell Test if a fairytale constitutes a 225-run loss and a standing ovation for scoring six in your last innings. If a fairytale means suffering your first loss here in Australia as a captain, a span of 21 Tests. Or if a fairytale is the biggest run-loss an Australian team has suffered since 1991, or the biggest run-loss against England since 1971.

Maybe people have different ideas of what constitutes a fairytale, but it's a fair tip that this is one bedtime story Waugh won't be telling his kids. To him, the Test ended. Australia lost. Simple as that.

Paul Kent The Advertiser (Adelaide)

The Australians dropped three catches on Thursday, which cost them 180 runs as England built a score of 362. Another two went down later in a display which, coupled with some half-hearted batting, reminded all of Australia's vulnerability in "dead rubbers".

This match will not just be remembered by Australians: "Ah, yeah, we lost the last one." It will be recalled for another classic performance from Steve Waugh – the 102 in his world-record-equalling 156th Test took him to 10,000 Test runs and equal with Don Bradman's Australian record of 29 centuries.

Trevor Marshallsea Sydney Morning Herald