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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Derek Murray
Roar Rookie
What you say makes sense DP. I don’t necessarily agree though and the tweaking they performed was to fit in two players ranked in the world top 10 who were not previously available. Which changes why or how you tweak your selection. With all available and had Khawaja and Finch been killing it I’d agree not to make a change
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
maybe, but that's only 'coz they unnecessarily tweaked a winning format. On the evidence in the lead up to the WC Finch and Khawaja were in fine form. Your approach puts all our eggs in the first three baskets and weakens everything after 3, except for the odd Max cameo. Khawaja opening loses nothing and strengthens us deeper.
Ben
Guest
Lot of England bashing after the loss to AUS, but England are the best team when batting on a flat wicket by virtue of their crazy top 6. Butler alone on a flat wicket is worth double a Steve Smith/Kane Williamson. Eoin Morgan is as mediocre as they come when the wicket is doing a bit, but when its ultra flat he becomes a different beast. Look at his innings against Afganistan last week. Roy will most likely be back for their next match as well.
Tazewep
Roar Rookie
Finding it hard to see how ENG make the last four. I have PAK coming 4th on 11 points. ENG need to beat both IND and NZ to get to 12 points - don't see it happening. By my calcs 1 v 4 will be IND v PAK and 2 v 3 will be AUS v NZ (basically doesn't matter whether AUS or NZ wins the pool game - they are finishing 2, 3 or 3, 2). So both semi-finals should be crackers! SL will be unlucky to miss out on 10 points and ENG to finish 6th.
Peter Warrington
Guest
yep whatever his 46* off 25 BATTING OUT THE OVERS against Sri Lanka, that pushed 310-15 to an unobtainable 334 - IRRELEVANT! His 32 off 10 RUN OUT GOING HARD IN THE 46TH AS WE HAD WICKETS IN HAND, that helped take 360 to 380 and threatened 400 - IRRELEVANT! Have not seen anyone accusing anyone of not batting out the overs. weirdly, Australia have batted out the overs in all games bar 2, where they have batted 98% of the overs each time.
Peter Warrington
Guest
comprehension not your thing? the issue was: are all of england flat track sloggers? the answer - some, not all? including that night eg Stokes
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Certainly if he wants to continue playing that spot in the team post world cup, he needs to turn some of his 20's and 30's into more. No question. I think there are a lot of people hoping for him to pull that off too because if he does, it will be worth watching. But in this world cup, there aren't other options there, so he will continue to play that through the tournament. He's also in the team as the one player who can come in and straight away start scoring at a 200 strike rate. The fact there aren't others around him able to do it almost puts more pressure on him to really go hard.
JamesH
Roar Guru
An ODI average of 33 with a strike rate of 124 is excellent for someone who regularly bats late in an innings. The fact he has achieved that with only one hundred and 19 50s over 107 matches says he makes a contribution more often than not, even if it's only a rapid 30-odd. Turner will get opportunities post-Cup, sure. But if you think he is going to post better numbers over then next couple of years then I think you're going to be sorely disappointed. Turner has had one innings of note and can't bowl because of a chronic shoulder issue. He has one 50 for WA from his last three JLT Cups (15 innings). During that time his List A average and strike rate were lower than Maxwell's were in ODIs. Why are you so willing to overlook his middling performances at a lower level because of one match-winning knock, while applying much tougher criteria to Maxwell? I will agree that Australia can't rely on Maxwell to adapt to different situations. When he's had opportunities to build an innings from an earlier point he's let himself down too often, which is frustrating because his red ball record says he is capable of playing more sedately. But he's still an important part of our side because he brings a rare ability to attack bowlers from ball one with something resembling consistency, which every other batsmen in our side lacks. Put it this way: if we were to drop Maxwell every opponent we play would be relieved. They'd see it as a gift.
JamesH
Roar Guru
That's a bit hyperbolic (and impossible to prove or disprove). Look at the ball Dorff got Bairstow with, though. It was a rank half tracker that Bairstow played an awful shot to. Not everything he bowled was perfect. NCN has delivered plenty of good spells and will do so again, even if not in this tournament. People need to stop with the kneejerk reactions to players having a couple of good/poor games.
U
Roar Rookie
NCN has never had a game with as accurate bowling as that. His fielding is okay but is batting is vastly overrated. It has been talked up by all and sundry for years and he came good once.
U
Roar Rookie
In Goodes’ case, it’s racist to boo him
Johnson
Guest
So the bloke who can't get a run at 8 (Ali) is the answer to open against Bumrah, Shami, Boult and Henry?
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
It sure is just maths. Australia has won six of seven with him contributing 100. He’s been irrelevant to Australia’s totals. Apparently that’s fine, he has a right to make as few runs as necessary because when the star’s align he MIGHT make more than thirty. If not, then Carey and Stoinis can take the rap for not batting out the overs. Weird stuff.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
You're missing my point James, I'm saying 100 ODI's and 6 recent WC games say he isn't capable of coming off consistently so facing 10 balls ten overs out is a liability and opponents are happy to see that. I'm only saying he should come in with a few balls to go now because we have a squad of 15 to choose from for the next 3-4 games. After that, goodbye Maxwell, hello Turner, you'll be around in 4 years time. As for going after the bowling, we have posted winning totals in this tournament with him contributing a paltry 100, we've been doing just fine without him. His time is up.
JamesH
Roar Guru
My point is that coming in at 5 has been coincidental. The third wicket has often fallen around the time in the innings that they wanted to inject him. Promoting him to 4 (at 2/30-odd) against WI was just a weird experiment. I'm sorry, but your argument that he should just come in with a few overs to go is silly. At that point there is no chance for him to come off because the innings is almost over. You'd be removing any possibility of him playing that big innings. At least if he comes in with 15 overs left then he has an opportunity to carry us to a big total (as he did several times in 2019 before the tournament). If he gets out after only three overs then it's the same net effect as if he'd come in at the 47 over mark anyway. I'm happy to concede that he hasn't had the tournament he'd have liked so far but he's still looked in pretty good touch. Besides, we don't have anyone else who can go after the bowling the way he does. Better to have Maxwell's inconsistent explosiveness than nothing.
badmanners
Roar Rookie
Yeah but after last night I'd say Stokes is the only one with a bit of fight in the team.
Derek Murray
Roar Rookie
On the evidence of this WC, that is simply wrong. Warner and Finch are our batting stalwarts. Khawaja needs to move but it’s down to 4 allowing Smith to bat 3
Sgt Pepperoni
Roar Rookie
Gotta give Ronan his dues and say that he called for Dorff and Gaz. Masterstroke from the selectors. Starc and Dorff with some of the best yorker bowling of the tournament. Lyon looked threatening despite his figures Don't see much value in Richardson and NCN on the squad. If there was a fast bowling injury surely they'd get Hazelwood in quick smart
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Can't agree with you on this one I2I. Stoinis has not come in then failed because of too much pressure being applied by Mazwell performances. If we look at all of Stoinis' innings from UEA in March UAE: - in at 3-124 (24th over). Stoinis out in 24th over for 10 runs. Batted ahead of Maxwell (71 from 55) - in at 3-98 (22nd). Out in 23rd (2). Batted ahead of Maxwell (98 from 82) - in at 3-274 (46th). Out in 48th (4). Maxwell (70 from 33) was in before and out after Stoinis. World Cup: - in at 4-38 (8th) after Maxwell duck. Stoinis out in 16th (19 runs) - in at 4-238 (40th). Maxwell (28) batted before and after Stoinis. Out in 40th (0) - in at 3/352 (47th) after Maxwell 32. Batted through to 50 (17*). - in at 4/213 (39th) after Maxwell out for 12. Out in 42nd (8) Maxwell has very little impact on applying pressure to Stoinis who had plenty of overs to get his own score. Stoinis' dismal UAE series saw Maxwell entrenched above him and, as the stats above show, Stoinis' WC performance hasn't been due to Maxwell. Stoinis' performances are his to own.
Zozza
Guest
It's a wonder the Poms didn't get the total in 23 overs, they way you are hyping their batting mate.