Their fielding was shoddy and the bowlers seldom threatened Australia as they chased England's total.The batting of Andrew Flintoff, who scored 87, delighted the England supporters but the largest cheer came when a Lancaster bomber, a Spitfire and a Hurricane flew over on their way back from a flypast in the centre of London.Ponting has been in disappointing form since arriving in England but his record demonstrates his class. The result makes tomorrow's last NatWest Challenge match at The Oval another final, and the winner will have claimed the last psychological blow before the real cricket starts - the Ashes. Ponting, who posted his 18th one-day hundred when he guided Stephen Harmison to third man for four, was superb, but he was helped by a lacklustre performance from England. Ricky Ponting and Australia reacted positively to Thursday's embarrassing defeat by England at Headingley when they completed a comfortable victory over Michael Vaughan's side here yesterday. The tourists' victory, which was completed when Darren Gough bowled a no-ball in the 45th over, is a setback for England and highlighted how well they will need to play over the coming weeks if they hope to regain the Ashes. To Middlesex ears they must have sounded more like the bells of hell, because Scott Styris quickly followed Smith back to the pavilion, caught off Greg Lamb, in the off-spinner's opening over.It left Joyce and the nightwatchman Alan Richardson to negotiate a sticky passage to the close at which point Middlesex were 108 runs off their target, and the match is looking finely poised.Earlier, Hampshire's second innings had lost its way when their remaining nine wickets added 161 runs, with Lamb's half-century and a punchy contribution from Dimitri Mascarenhas the only saving graces.But Warne would have taken heart from the fact that seven wickets fell to the spin of Jamie Dalrymple and the impressive Chris Peploe, who uses his height, 6ft 4in, to good effect to launch his left-arm spin..
He too had made 60, although in a more prudent two and a quarter hours.It being a Sunday the bells of the nearby Christ Church had begun pealing, almost as stridently as some of the two teams' appeals during this match. Injured in last week's team time-trial in Blois, Zabriskie was nearly an hour adrift on Saturday's stage and yesterday he quit after 10km.Alasdair Fotheringham writes for 'Cycling Weekly'. Shane Warne finds himself this morning just six wickets away from what would be the perfect send-off for him - a victory to take into the forthcoming Ashes series - because this is the Hampshire captain's last appearance for the county until after the Australians have done battle with England. But if one American was looking back in control of affairs, for another, the Tour's first yellow jersey wearer David Zabriskie, a second day of hard climbing proved too much. "High mountain stages like in the Alps [starting tomorrow] are just not my thing," he said.They are Armstrong's however, and the six-time Tour winner was more optimistic at the end of yesterday's stage than 24 hours previously, when he had been completely isolated from his Discovery Channel team on the Tour's first major climb.On the second-category climb of the Col de la Schlucht, Alexandre Vinokourov pulverised the Texan's squad with six attacks, and his T-Mobile team-mate Andreas Kl? rubbed salt into the wound by tearing off close to the summit to gain 27 seconds of advantage on Armstrong, who described his day as "shitty".His team were back on-message yesterday, flanking their leader faultlessly over the Ballon d'Alsace at the front of the main bunch. "My initial idea was to strengthen my hold on the mountains jersey, but I had a four-minute advantage after the Ballon, so I knew I could stay away alone to the finish," Rasmussen said.Voigt, one of his two closest pursuers, took over the yellow jersey but was realistic enough to recognise that his time in the limelight will be limited. The Dane took a huge gamble of the sort that rarely pays off these days by attacking almost as soon as the race began in Gerardmer, deep in the Vosges mountain range of eastern France.Crossing all six classified climbs which followed in first place, Rasmussen shook off the one rider willing to accompany him in such a reckless act, the Reading-born Italian Dario Cioni, even before the main climb of the day, the 22-kilometre (14 miles) Ballon d'Alsace.
When you cross the line and you don't go to the podium to put it on, you're a little sad. But it's a long race and now it's the last 10 days which matter." Rasmussen pulled off one of the most remarkable exploits in recent Tour history, forging his way to a solo win after spending 100 miles ahead of the field. "It was not a priority to keep it, but it's always a special jersey to have on your back. "I felt today might be the day we gave the jersey away or the jersey was taken away and sure enough it was," he said. Armstrong claimed that losing the lead to the German was "a strategic decision". On Saturday, with his team failing to provide adequate support, Lance Armstrong looked vulnerable.
