Australia suffer third straight Ashes loss even as tail wags

Australia's 14-run defeat by England in the first Ashes Test at Trent Bridge on Sunday threw up several interesting statistics.

Among them were:

-- Australia have now lost three Ashes Tests in a row to arch-rivals England. The last time this happened was when they lost the last two Tests of the 1985 series in England and the first of the 1986/87 campaign in Brisbane.

But this is still some way short of Australia's worst losing streak in Ashes Tests of seven in a row between 1885 and 1888.

Australia have now lost their last five Tests, with Sunday's reverse coming after a 4-0 series loss in India earlier this year.

Their worst losing streaks are that 19th Century run to England, then six, all to the West Indies in 1984, and five - all against England - between 1926 and 1929.

-- At Trent Bridge, Australia became the third team to have partnerships over 50 for the 10th wicket in both innings of a Test (163 and 65).

The other two instances were both achieved by Australia against England, at Adelaide in 1895 and Sydney in 1924.

Australia's aggregate of 228 for the 10th wicket at Trent Bridge was a Test record, beating the 189 (62 and 127) they managed at Sydney in 1924.

In 17 Tests since the start of 2012, Australia's 10th wicket has now added 686 runs at an impressive average of 40.35.

-- England batsman Ian Bell's second innings 109, the only century of the match, was just his second Test ton against Australia in 19 matches.

-- Australia teenage debutant Ashton Agar's first innings 98 was the highest score by any Test match No.11 batsman.

-- England paceman James Anderson took 10 wickets in this match to take his Test tally at Trent Bridge to 49 in seven matches.