- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australia has claimed a 59-run victory in their first of five ODIs against England.
The match didn’t end as it had promised at the start of the English chase. When Jason Roy and Alex Hales were firing all cylinders, the target looked small, but one always thought these changed regulations would have an effect on the chase later in the innings.
No longer is it easy to keep finding the boundaries in those last 15 overs as it had been before the rule-changes and teams need to plan for it accordingly.
Due credit to the manner in which Matthew Wade batted in company of Mitchell Marsh towards the end for Australia. That was the difference between the two sides, who both lost wickets in a heap.
Picture this: Australia were 1/133 and fell to 6/193. England were 1/112 and then slumped to 6/193 at around the 36 to 37-over mark. And while Australia were able to push it up to more than 300, England fell away to an easy defeat.
England also lost three wickets from four balls, and that’s where the game turned on its head. Something to ponder for the hosts come the second ODI on Saturday.
The first of five ODIs between England and Australia will be played on Thursday at Southampton as the world champions look to make amends for a poor Ashes series and the one-off T20I loss. You can follow live scores and a blog of this match on Thursday from 11:00pm (AEST).
While a T20I defeat is usually not much to worry about given the how few and far between they are played, the result is a pointer for Australia regarding how England would be approaching the ODIs.
Already England have exhibited a new-found, aggressive mindset towards the game and it was on show during both the Tests and the one-off T20I. Specifically in the T20I Alex Hales and Jason Roy fell early but as captain Eoin Morgan has promised in the past three months, the later batsmen showed no signs of caution.
Morgan and Moeen Ali went bang from very early in their innings and at one point it looked like even mis-hits were going the distance from their bats. The shorter boundaries and easy pitch helped but given how other batsmen found it tough to carve out runs as easily as the duo, it was a commendable effort.
And yet, Australia would want to think they should have won the game. They didn’t bowl well enough in the middle overs but the quicks Pat Cummins and Nathan Counter-Nile started and ended well to restrict England to 182 after 200 looked quite possible.
And then, despite the loss of David Warner and Shane Watson early, Steven Smith and Glenn Maxwell combined positiveness with maturity – a combination not usually associated with Maxwell – to steer them closer to the target.
At one stage they were just 59 runs away from a win and with seven overs and eight wickets to spare, it looked like it was theirs for the taking.
Maxwell fell and the rest of the middle and lower-middle order failed to adjust to either the track or the requirement to start hitting very early in their innings. Smith carried on to get into his 90s and it was his wicket in a crucial 19th over that hammered the final nail in the coffin.
Fifty-over cricket is a different beast altogether and Australia will welcome back the likes of George Bailey, Joe Burns and Ashton Agar. What needs to be seen is if Bailey regains his place in the ODI side, Burns makes his ODI debut and Australia choose to go in with an extra spinner in the form of Agar.
England’s confidence will be brimming and that’s not just from winning the Ashes and the one-off T20I.
It must be remembered that New Zealand had visited the country just before this series and England had gone on to win that ODI series 3-2.
It had been a surprise result for a team which had looked so lost during the World Cup that it crashed out in the round one, losing to Bangladesh in the process. New Zealand were obviously coming off a World Cup runner-up title.
So while Australia are 9-1 on head to head in ODI cricket against England in their previous 10 games, this might not be as one-sided a series as what one may come to expect.
Follow the live scores and blog of this first ODI between England and Australia from 11:00pm (AEST) on Thursday and post your comments in the section below.
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.