The Great Gabbs-Boys

Brisbane, First Test, Fifth Day: England 157 & 293 (Collingwood 96, Pietersen 92; Clark 4-72, Warne 4-124) lost to Australia 602/9 dec. & 202/1 dec. by 277 runs

For the fifth Ashes series in a row Australia laid down a marker by wrapping up the First Test half an hour before lunch.

Failure for England was pretty much guaranteed just four balls in - Kevin Pietersen out for his overnight score of 92 - with the eventual margin of defeat a mammoth 277 runs.

It was England's biggest fourth innings loss since the opening Test of the last Ashes tour, when they were handed a 384 run spanking, which set the tone for an eventual 4-1 reverse.

Visiting skipper Andrew Flintoff looked back to last summer's success for inspiration, saying "We've been in this position before and we'll be looking forward to bouncing back in the second Test in Adelaide."

    

Man-of-the-match Ricky Ponting also alluded to the 2005 series. He said: "We won the First Test there easily and things went wrong from there on.

"We've got to look at the areas we played well in this game and carry those on to Adelaide."

Catch the final day's highlights tonight on BBC Two at 11:20, and listen to live coverage of day one of the Second Test on Radio 4 198LW and the BBC Sport website from midnight on Thursday.