The England cricket team’s three-month tour to Australia ended on a frightening note when their physiotherapist was robbed at knife-point by a gang in the lobby of the team hotel in Sydney.

Five members of the England party, including Andrew Strauss, the former stand-in captain, witnessed four men wearing balaclavas breaking into the hotel at about 4am yesterday.

One of the security guards who have been protecting the squad during the tour shepherded Strauss, Kevin Shine, the bowling coach, Matthew Maynard, the batting coach, and Mark Garaway, the team analyst, into another room, but Dean Conway, the physiotherapist, had wandered away from the group to make a phone call.

Conway returned to the lobby to find the hotel staff lying on the floor and one of the gang demanding access to the safe. They stole Conway’s mobile phone and wallet before running out of the Radisson Plaza Hotel and escaping in a white sedan car.

Conway, a large man who formerly played top-level rugby union, was unharmed.

“It was a pretty scary affair,” a spokesman for the England team said. “Knives were produced and threats were made, but fortunately no one was badly hurt. It all happened quite quickly. It’s probably a good thing that most of them are heading home today.”

Strauss and the party had arrived at the hotel after spending the night in Sydney celebrating England’s win over Australia, which secured the Commonwealth Bank Series on Sunday. It had been a belated element of success in an otherwise dismal tour, with Australia regaining the Ashes with a 5-0 series win.

The England squad and their extensive team of coaches, minders and support staff were flying back home last night for a brief break before they head to the Caribbean for the World Cup, which starts next month. The squad for that tournament will be announced tomorrow.

New South Wales Police confirmed that the gang had forced open the locked doors of the hotel with a jemmy. “We’re studying the security cameras and are hoping to make arrests,” a spokesman said. “Sadly, it’s not an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. I doubt it would be anyone wanting to get revenge on England for beating Australia.”

Conway, 41, had problems earlier in the tour dealing with a string of injured players, including Michael Vaughan, the captain.

A prop forward in his youth for Cardiff, Pontypridd and Wales Schools, Conway has become a familiar figure during almost a decade of tending to the cuts, bruises and sprains suffered by England’s one-day squad.

He was the Glamorgan physiotherapist from 1989-98 and worked for Maynard, the captain at the time, and Duncan Fletcher, now the England coach, when the club won the county championship in 1997. In recent years he has served only as England’s one-day physiotherapist, with Kirk Russell looking after the Test team.