Warne milestone slips under radar

Shane Warne achieved yet another milestone in his glittering career almost without notice as Australia celebrated another England collapse in the final Ashes Test.

The 37-year-old leg-spinner has grabbed even more attention than he usually does in recent weeks after becoming the first bowler in history to claim 700 Test victims and also announcing his retirement from Test cricket after this match.

But after following spin rival Muttiah Muralitharan to 1,000 international victims on Wednesday there was no announcement, no fanfare, no acknowledgement other than cheers that England had missed another opportunity to force home their advantage.

Warne claimed the final wicket of the innings, trapping Monty Panesar lbw as England lost their last six wickets for 45 runs to be dismissed for 291 before the players ran off the field to begin their reply.

By the close they had progressed to within 103 runs of England's total by reaching 188 for four and even his team-mates seemed largely unaware of the milestone he had just reached.

Instead they seemed to be focusing on the triple Test retirement - Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer - which was being marked by this Test match.

"For me personally it feels a bit strange because I'm not actually retiring from cricket after this game - I've still got the one-dayers to come so in that respect it is strange," admitted McGrath.

"I'm just trying to take it all in and I think myself and Shane probably keep our emotions in check whereas Justin is quite an emotional person, so I think he has found it a little bit tougher than we have."