The series is dead, the Ashes have been won. Rain had been forecast and the weather was unseasonably cool but neither the state of the series nor the state of the weather could deter 89,000 cricket-mad fans filing into the MCG for the traditional Boxing Day Test match.

This Boxing Day had an extra significance, for this was Melbourne’s last chance to see one of its favourite sporting sons, Shane Warne, in action for his country - and to witness the Australian leg spinner claim an unprecedented 700th Test wicket.

Rain delayed the start and interrupted play for the first half of the day, the Australian quicks bowled superbly, their fielders dropped three easy chances, England’s batting was devoid of imagination and skill - and finally Andrew Flintoff was on a hat-trick. All this happened on the opening day but for those who were there, this was Warne’s day as cricket’s showman wowed the crowd with the first performance of his farewell tour.

After England won the toss and granted the crowd’s wishes by batting first, the weather and some fine quick bowling that left the batsman playing and missing forced the fans to wait patiently until mid-afternoon and the 41st over before Warne took to the crease with England at a snails-pace 82 for two.

When he finally did stride to the crease, Warne was greeted by a thunderous standing ovation from the Australian fans. The crowd would only have to wait until his fourth over for the magical 700-mark, the ‘Sheik of Tweak’ spinning one through the defences of Andrew Strauss and sparking rapturous scenes on both sides of the fence.

Warne was quickly surrounded by his teammates while the crowd, both Australian and English, rose to their feet in celebration of the achievement - which many thought was beyond the realms of reality when Warne first played Test cricket in 1992.

With the task of achieving the milestone out of the way, Warne proceded to rip through the rest of the English batting and walk away with his third five-wicket haul at his home ground. His 5-39 came off 17.2 overs as England crumbled to 159 all out.

England were taking a gamble batting first in conditions that favoured bowling and they would have to be gutted by their inability to rise up to the challenge. With the Australians getting movement of the pitch and in the air, the batsmen were forced into their shells, playing and missing at an incredible number of deliveries and being squared up far too often.

What really killed the English effort was a dearth of creativity in their stroke-making and a lack of intent to go out and dominate the batsmen. The bowlers were allowed to find their rhythm too easily with only Kevin Pietersen and Flintoff trying to move the scoring along - although both men’s timing and footwork was below par.

The Australian opening pair of Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden showed that the pitch was not impossible to score on, racing to 44 before Flintoff made the double strike of Langer and nightwatchman Brett Lee. Both were caught behind off consecutive deliveries and at least gave the tourists a positive to take from the day as Australia closed on 48 for two.

The official attendance of 89,155 fell just short of the record attendance for a day of Test cricket - but did claim the record for the largest crowd at an Ashes match. The record had been expected to be broken with a pre-match ticket sellout, but the wet weather and dead-rubber status of the series may have deterred some ticket holders from attending.