Australia 552 for 9 dec beat England 342 and 159 (Stewart 57, McGrath 4-41) by an innings and 51 runs
Scorecard

In the end, the execution was clean and clinical. Shortly before tea Australia went 2-0 up in the Ashes series with a crushing victory by an innings and 51 runs. England scrapped hard in the morning session, but the game was up once Glenn McGrath took an extraordinary catch to get rid of his old mate Michael Vaughan, and the lower order once again went down like ninepins.

Australia won with over four sessions to spare, but in reality it was a bit closer than that. All day both sides knew that a monsoon was in the post, and that when it came there was a serious chance of there being no further play - not just today, but tomorrow as well. With that in mind, England's collapse was another classic: the last six wickets went down for 45 runs – and that included a last-wicket partnership of 25.

Alec Stewart played well for 57, in the process becoming the fourth Englishman to pass 8000 Test runs, and Vaughan showed his class in making 41, but it was otherwise a distinctly ordinary effort. This was England's first innings defeat in Australia since they were hammered on this ground in 1965-66. They might not have to wait so long for the next one.

It took Australia only 13 balls to take the first wicket of the day, when Robert Key dragged a sluggish pull off Andy Bichel straight to midwicket (40 for 4). It was an extremely soft dismissal, and Key was gone for 1 for the second time in the match.

Stewart scurried from the start, punishing some errant work from Bichel and dominating a fifth-wicket partnership of 74 with Vaughan. Vaughan showed plenty of fibre in withstanding a relentless assault from Shane Warne, bowling into the rough from around the wicket.

For a time, England's progress was comfortable, helped by Steve Waugh's peculiar decision to keep McGrath out of the attack for an hour and a half. It needed something special and it came from McGrath – but it was Warne's name in the bowler's column.

McGrath at square leg failed to pick up the flight of Vaughan's sweep at first, but when he did he sprinted 20 yards before diving full length and clutching the ball just off the turf. There was a slight element of fortune – the ball hit McGrath's left hand before nestling in his right – but it would be churlish to dwell on that: it was breathtaking stuff.

Nobody at the ground could really believe what had happened, as 6ft 5ins fast bowlers just aren't supposed to take catches like that. McGrath, his cap still safely perched on his head, set off like a man who had just scored the winner in the Champions League final. It was a delicious and dramatic twist to the Vaughan/McGrath sub-plot that Vaughan, with a head-to-head average against McGrath of 45, had been winning.

Lunch threatened to bring salvation for England, with the players going on and off twice shortly after the break. But six balls into the third mini-session Craig White, who had already had one life when he bat-padded Warne to slip and was given not out, played a shot of startling idiocy. At a time when runs were about as important as aesthetics in a chip shop, White pulled a short one from McGrath gently to mid-on, where the substitute Brett Lee took a simple catch (130 for 6).

Off the very next ball Stewart went lbw to Warne, the 14th time he has fallen to him in Tests. Stewart got a big stride in, the sort of stride that would probably have saved him ten years ago, but the reality is that the ball was going straight on to hit middle.

Matthew Hoggard was next to go, yorked beautifully by McGrath, who finished with 4 for 41, before Steve Harmison missed a straight one from Warne. After another rain break, Richard Dawson drove McGrath for four fours in five balls. Trying to make it five in six, he edged to Adam Gilchrist and the game was up. Torrential rain arrived almost immediately.

There were shades of the Old Trafford Test of 1988, when England's last seven wickets crumbled in little more than an hour against West Indies on the final morning – and the match finished precisely three minutes before the heavens opened. That summer England lost 4-0 to the best team in the world. They'll do well to get away so lightly this time.

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Rob Smyth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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