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Australia leave England in World Cup disarray

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Expert
25th June, 2019
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England’s World Cup is in disarray after being given a resounding wake-up call by Australia.

The hosts and raging pre-tournament favourites now need to win their last two games, against heavweights India and New Zealand, to be certain of avoiding an early exit.

England will be under immense pressure when they face the commanding Indian team on Sunday after losses to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and now Australia in this tournament.

On Tuesday they were out-classed despite getting to bowl first on a greentop which offered the home quicks huge assistance. England’s pacemen failed to exploit the favourable conditions as Australia scored an above-par total of 7-285.

The Aussies later showed them just where they had erred by maintaining a fuller length to reduce England to 4-53. The visitors were rewarded for remodelling their misfiring bowling attack.

The first change Australia made was demoting star quick Pat Cummins to first change and handing the new ball to gifted swing bowler Jason Behrendorff, who was outstanding.

The left armer from Western Australia had an immediate impact, bowling James Vince with a beautiful in-swinger from the second ball of the innings. Later he had the dangerous Jonny Bairstow caught on the deep wicket boundary.

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In between those two dismissals, Mitchell Starc used his express pace to undo England’s two most experienced batsmen. First he had Joe Root plumb LBW, then he got captain Eoin Morgan caught on the hook.

Mitchell Starc bowling

How do Australia knock off England? (Photo by Action Foto Sport/NurPhoto)

By the time Australia’s opening bowlers had finished their first spells, the hosts were gone and their World Cup was in crisis.

For a team that had enormous hype behind them leading into this tournament, England have underperformed dramatically. Despite owning a commanding record while chasing in bilateral series, they have lost three of their four matches while batting second. This suggests that, while they were dominant in those low-profile series, England are not the same side under real pressure.

And pressure is all they will face from here on out. To claim their first-ever World Cup, they may well need to win four consecutive games against elite opponents. Right now it would be a brave soul to back them to achieve that.

Earlier, Australia completed an odd innings. After two overs, with ten wickets in hand, they surely would have been happy to make 260 so tricky were the conditions. Yet in the end they would have been disappointed with their total of 285.

On a moist pitch under a grey sky, the conditions were far more difficult than what ODI batsmen usually encounter. Deliveries were jagging off the seam, with some balls moving laterally more than 30cm off the pitch.

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Such conditions are almost unheard of in the modern era, when dead pitches are the norm. This appeared tailor made for the English quicks, who are used to such favourable pitch and atmospheric conditions in first-class cricket.

They were also the kind of conditions in which Australia have often folded with the bat in recent years. Batting first, this surface was no more difficult than the Trent Bridge deck on which Australia were rolled for 60 in the last Ashes in England.

But the English quicks wasted these dream conditions by bowling far too short. Quite remarkably, only three of the first 55 balls they bowled would have struck the stumps, according to the TV coverage.

When they dropped short the ball sat up and was easy picking for Aaron Finch and David Warner, two elite players of cross-bat strokes. On the odd occasion that England’s quicks pitched the ball up, they had both openers in a tangle.

Aaron Finch batting.

Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images

England’s imprecise efforts in the first half of the innings were matched by their fielding, as time and again the hosts put in half-hearted efforts.

In the 26th over Finch tapped the ball to point, where Jofra Archer somehow misfielded the gently rolling ball and coughed up a single. Four balls later, wicketkeeper Jos Buttler butchered a regulation stumping chance as Usman Khawaja (23) was beat in the flight by Adil Rashid.

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This sequence of events summed up England’s clumsy display.

It also brought to the crease Steve Smith (38 from 34 balls) who again looked fluent before holing out in the dying overs. That put the onus on wicketkeeper-batsman Alex Carey to be the finisher.

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In a sign of his blooming confidence at this level, Carey compiled a crucial 38 from 27 balls at the death. The South Australian has now made 356 runs at 44, with a strike rate of 104, since moving down to number seven.

With their top order purring, Glenn Maxwell and Carey in fine touch in the middle order, and their attack now looking more complete, Australia must have finished this match in a buoyant mood.

England, meanwhile, are left to wonder just how they will get their World Cup back on track.

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