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Australia has fallen agonisingly short of victory in Wednesday night’s Twenty20 match at Adelaide Oval, going down to England by one wicket. English all-rounder Chris Woakes hit the winning run off the last ball of the innings, securing England its eighth consecutive Twenty20 victory – a world record.
Earlier in the evening, Australian captain Cameron White won the toss and elected to bat, with openers Shane Watson and David Warner putting on 83 runs for the first wicket.
The normally aggressive Warner was forced to take a backseat to the explosive batting of his opening partner, as Watson hit three consecutive sixes off the bowling of English spinner Graeme Swann to start the eighth over. Watson finished with 59 runs off 31 balls, as Warner found himself holding up an end for one of the few times in his career.
The Australian innings ended at 4 for 157, a score which proved too low for the deep England batting line-up.
The Australian middle order of Hussey, White, Finch and Smith managed only four boundaries between them and failed to capitalise on the substantial platform laid down by openers Warner and Watson.
The inability of the middle order to continue to press hard for quick runs meant that England always looked like chasing down the Australian total in good batting conditions on a warm Adelaide night.
England opener Ian Bell continued his good form of late, clubbing three boundaries off the first over when the visitor’s innings got underway, before being caught by Steve Smith off the bowling of Mitchell Johnson for 27 runs off 17 balls.
England number three Kevin Pietersen took a liking to the bowling of Stephen O’Keefe, hitting the spinner for successive boundaries off his first two deliveries before mis-hitting the third ball and being caught at mid-off by David Hussey.
At 5 for 130 England appeared to be cruising to an easy before all-rounder Shane Watson took two wickets in two balls to reignite Australia’s chances of victory.
It fell to Watson to bowl the final over of the match, with England requiring four runs for victory with two wickets in hand. Watson bowled Swann with the first ball of the final over but it was not enough to prevent England scoring the winning runs.
Watson played the game of his life, finishing with bowling figures of 4 for 15 to go with his half-century with the bat, and was a deserving winner of the man-of-the-match award.
England and Australia next meet at the MCG on Friday for the second and final Twenty20 match before a seven match one-day series.
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