MANCHESTER -- England's men's gymnastics team defended their team title in front of a fanatical home crowd at the Commonwealth Games on Friday, the second gold medal for the home country on the first full day of action.

England scored 162.075 points after a tight battle with Canada, who scored 161.350, with Australia third on 159.1 points, to match their victory at Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

The home team were boosted by strong performances from Craig Heap, with a 9.1 on the horizontal bar, and Kanukai Jackson, who scored a superb 9.55 on the vault with a solid handspring double front somersault, before a roaring capacity crowd of around 6,000 at Manchester's G-Mex Center.

"I'm absolutely gobsmacked, the crowd were absolutely fantastic," said 29-year-old Heap. "The audience really got behind us. We owe them a lot. "We were getting a bit nervous toward the high bar, but we put a lot of work in and we got through it."

Heap, who had been considering retiring due to injuries and was reported to be joining French performing circus Cirque du Soleil, said he had not made a decision about his future, Reuters reported.

"I don't know what I'm going to do to be honest.

It's definitely been a bit of a struggle since the Olympics with the amount of operations our team doctor could perform.

"But we'll have to wait and see. There's a lot of thinking to be done over the next couple of months," he said.