Cricket - England Look To End Tour On High

Cricket - England Look To End Tour On High

England could end their Ashes tour in Sydney on Sunday by becoming the first side for 14 years to beat Australia in a home one-day final.

"That would be absolutely magnificent," said wicket-keeper Paul Nixon.

"We've had a hard time, a hard tour and this would be some just reward for a lot of hard work."

After more than two months without success they have beaten the hosts twice in the last week but need to do so again or face a decider on Tuesday.

The last team to beat Australia in the annual one-day series were West Indies in 1992/93. The hosts have since failed to reach the finals series only twice.

Nixon hit 11 runs from 10 balls in the final overs of England's four-wicket win in the first match of the best-of-three finals in Melbourne on Friday.

It went some way to justifying his surprise call-up at the age of 36.

"I thought there was a chance my time would never come again for England and I'm here on one of the greatest tours you could ever have," he told said. "All of a sudden you're in the mixer, playing at the MCG and Sydney - places I've always dreamed of."

After dominating much of the tournament, Australia put in their poorest performance so far on Friday. But Glenn McGrath - who was bowled for a duck, dropped a catch and went wicketless - believes it could be just the wake-up call they need.

The veteran has extra reason to hope the home side will learn from their mistakes as Sunday's match will be his final appearance at his home ground, Sydney.

McGrath, 37, has already announced he would retire after the World Cup in April.

"It was probably one of the worst performances I've been involved in for a long, long time," he commented. "Sometimes you need that, especially leading into a big series like the World Cup. We let ourselves down but hopefully we can learn from it. To have something like that makes us all refocus again and realise what's important and get out there and do the job properly. I only have to think back to the fifth Ashes Test match, that was the perfect way to finish my Test career. So hopefully the one-dayers can be very similar."

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