ADELAIDE, Dec 5: Captain Ricky Ponting on Tuesday hailed Australia's 'miracle of Adelaide' Ashes Test win over England as one of the all-time great Test cricket wins.

Man-of-the-match Ponting said his team had produced something exceptional to win the second Ashes Test with an astonishing final day fightback that left England numb with shock.

England lost after scoring 551 for six, the largest-ever declared first innings total for a team who then went on to lose the match.

Ponting said it was the greatest Test he had played in. “It's one of the all-time great Test wins as far as I'm concerned,” Ponting said.

“To turn a Test match around like that, it just doesn't happen. You've all seen enough games of Test match cricket and I've played enough to know that you have to do something exceptionally well to turn the course of a Test match around that way.

Shocked skipper Andrew Flintoff blamed one calamitous hour for England loss. “For four days we played some fantastic cricket but I think it's obvious that today for an hour, that's when the game got away from us,” Flintoff said.

“Shane Warne and Brett Lee bowled well and took wickets, and from that we got on the back foot. The lads are bitterly disappointed because we gave it everything, but it just shows you that in Test cricket if you have one bad hour it can cost you the game.”— AFP