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Returning to the scene of Australia’s Ashes defeat, stand-in captain Michael Clarke believes his side will be more determined than ever to win their one-day cricket series against England.
With the seven-match series starting at The Oval on Friday, Clarke said it had not been hard for the Test players in the one-day squad to lift themselves after their loss at the same ground less than a fortnight ago, which handed England the urn 2-1.
“Probably the complete opposite,” Clarke said.
“Because we didn’t get the result we wanted, I see more reason to get out here and want to have a really good one-day series so we leave England with some positives and winning this series is pretty important.
“We’ve got the ICC Champions Trophy coming up in a couple of weeks … so it’s really important that we start playing, or continue to play, some good one-day cricket and take this form over to South Africa with us.”
The Australians will attempt to defend their Champions Trophy title later this month.
Starting their series against England, the tourists are third in the world rankings with 119 points.
England are fourth, eight points behind Australia, while South Africa are No.1 on 127 points, followed by India with 126.
With the one-day international rankings updated after every match, the hosts can overtake Australia as soon as this weekend if they win the first two games, with the second at Lord’s on Sunday.
England can stay ahead of their old foes if they win the series 5-2 or better.
Australia, meanwhile, can regain top spot, but need to win all matches against England and then rely on New Zealand or Sri Lanka to beat India at least once in their series in Colombo.
England captain Andrew Strauss said his side remained buoyed by the Ashes victory.
“There’s a great feeling in the camp,” Strauss said.
“I think there’s a real excitement amongst the guys, to a certain extent about what we’ve achieved, those of us who were involved in the Test series, but also the other guys coming in who have been watching it and want to be involved in international cricket again.
“There’s not a lot of time to dwell on the past, you’ve got to be looking forward, there’s always a new challenge there and now we’ve got an extended period of one-day cricket to immerse ourselves in and hopefully use the feel-good factor that we got in the Ashes to propel us to play better cricket.”
Australia were twice robbed of the chance to leave with Twenty20 bragging rights after both their matches in Manchester ended in no-result wash-outs, the second before a ball was bowled.
Meanwhile, new England opener Joe Denly is doubtful for the first one-day international against Australia after injuring his left knee while playing football as part of the team’s training session at The Oval on Thursday.
Strauss said the team would look at changing their warm-up routine after Denly sustained the injury in a collision with Owais Shah.
“Up until now, we haven’t had any incidents of anyone missing any cricket through a football-related injury, but it looks like we’re going to this time and that’s frustrating,” Strauss said.
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