Cricket: Australia's Ashes prospects looking healthier

Australia's Ashes prospects don't look so sickly now.

The world champions today romped home over England with eight wickets and more than 15 overs to spare to win the deciding clash of the one-day cricket part of the tour at The Oval.

A brutal century to Adam Gilchrist (121 not out from 101 balls) and a return to form by fast bowler Jason Gillespie (3-44 from 10 overs) were the highlights for the Australians, who restricted England to 7-228 and then cantered home in 34.5 overs.

The victory gave Ricky Ponting's side the edge over England in the limited-overs clashes, with a 2-1 win in the three-match head-to-head series and an overall 3-2 advantage in the seven one-day matches (one no-result and one tie) between the sides spanning this competition and the tri-series.

After a wobbly first five weeks on tour, Australia produced close to its best in the past two matches, having beaten its old rival by seven wickets at Lord's last Sunday.

"That's as close as perfect as one-day cricket gets for us," Ponting said at The Oval.

"To restrict them the way we did early on and then to peel those runs off with (almost) 16 overs to go and only two wickets down, I think that is a very, very big and comprehensive win."

Australia can now turn its attention to first-class cricket, starting with a three-day match against Leicestershire, starting Friday, where Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz are likely to bowl off for the last paceman's position behind Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee.

Kasprowicz also bowled well today and took 2-46 including the big wickets of danger men Andrew Strauss (36) and Andrew Flintoff (five).

After bad losses to Bangladesh, three weeks ago, and England at Headingley last Thursday, Ponting said he would not read too much into one-day form although he was pleased the side had shown it capabilities.

"A couple of weeks ago, or a couple of days ago even, it didn't look that bright for us," he said.

"The pleasing thing for me and the team is that a lot of our individual players have really lifted and got right back into some form in the big games when it really mattered for us, and they're players we needed to have in some sort of form leading into the Ashes series."

England captain Michael Vaughan refused to concede Australia the advantage ahead of the first Test, at Lord's starting July 21.

"On Thursday, once we won at Headingley, everyone was saying the momentum was with England," Vaughan said.

"I certainly didn't believe that either and I certainly don't believe now that the momentum is swinging towards Australia.

Australia leaves for Leicester tomorrow, with Justin Langer, Shane Warne, Brad Hodge, Shaun Tait and Stuart MacGill coming into the Test squad.

- AAP