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Australia have overcome the loss of two stars to win a controversial and at times spiteful one-day clash with England at Lord’s.
On the second ball of the day, the world champions lost opener David Warner to a broken thumb which will keep him out for four to six weeks, and they finished the match without luckless allrounder Shane Watson, who looks set to be sidelined with a calf strain.
But they recovered to prevail by 64 runs, having bowled England out for 245 – in part thanks to the controversial dismissal of allrounder Ben Stokes.
The dynamic left-hander was given his marching orders over the little-used ‘obstructing the field’ law when he stuck out a hand to deflect a shy at the stumps from Australian quick Mitchell Starc.
The Laws of Cricket state that a batsman must be trying to “wilfully attempt to obstruct or distract the fielding side” to be dismissed obstructing the field.
Stokes, who was on 10, was not looking at the ball when he blocked it – and his movements appeared to be more of the self-preservation variety rather than having any intention of protecting his stumps.
Wicketkeeper Matthew Wade immediately appealed, along with Starc, and umpire Kumar Dharmasena referred the decision to the third umpire Joel Wilson, who saw enough evidence to give Stokes his marching orders.
Australian captain Steve Smith could’ve retracted the appeal and recalled Stokes, but he chose not to – a move which divided opinion.
“He is perfectly entitled to (leave it to the umpires),” said former England skipper Michael Atherton.
Champion Australian legspinner Shane Warne felt differently.
“The correct decision was made by the umps re Stokes even though I didn’t like it,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Cricket would’ve been the winner if Smith called him back.”
The dismissal reduced England to 4-141, and triggered a collapse of 5-46 before a 55-run partnership between Eoin Morgan (85 off 87) and Liam Plunkett (24 off 12) pushed Australia to the end.
The incident enraged the typically sedate Lord’s crowd, who booed loudly for a solid half hour after the incident and hurled abuse following Starc’s every involvement for the rest of the match.
Their feelings were not lifted when Wilson also overturned an LBW decision off Glenn Maxwell against Jos Buttler for a duck to exacerbate the collapse.
Starc responded to the boos by clean bowling Plunkett to end England’s resistance and silence the crowd.
Maxwell finished with two wickets, while Pat Cummins claimed 4-56.
Earlier, Mitch Marsh blasted a blistering half century to carry Australia past 300 after Steve Smith (70) and George Bailey (54) had set the platform.
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