Australia 251-7 (50 overs) England 252-4 (45.4 overs)
I can’t remember a time when England have beaten Australia so easily in an ODI. If Lord’s was a canter, the Oval was a cakewalk.
The Aussies’ total of 251 was never going to be enough on a fast scoring ground with a good pitch. Sky reckoned it was about thirty runs short. One hundred and thirty would’ve been more accurate.
The Aussie innings never really got going. Ideal ODI batting efforts usually start briskly in the initial powerplay, consolidate in the middle overs, then accelerate towards the end. The Aussies started with a hiccup, stagnated in the middle, and only managed to get a move on when a thirty five year old bowler, an icon of their glory years, swatted a few late boundaries. Brett Lee currently looks like their best batsman.
England’s chase couldn’t have got off to a better, nor more amusing, start. You’d have thought that an experienced campaigner like Michael Clarke would have known better than to give the new ball to Mitchell ‘he bowls to the left, he bowls to the right’ Johnson.
England’s fans expected something comic, and good old Mitch delivered: he bowled a series of front foot noballs and watched the subsequent free hits scoot across the outfield for four. Let’s hope he keeps up the good work.
The stars of the show for England with the bat were Ian Bell, who compiled a flawless 75, and Ravi Bopara, who looked a bit skittish at times, but eventually composed himself to make an impressive 82. The runs would have done him the world of good.
It was quite amusing seeing a man who was tormented by the Aussies in 2009, and universally written off by them as a failure, make mincemeat of their bowlers three years later.
The funniest moment of the day, however, came from Nick Knight in the commentary box. When discussing Eoin Morgan’s successful review – when he was given out lbw on the field, but was reprieved when the third umpire noticed what looked like a small hotspot on his inside edge – good old Knight decided to help the viewers at home by highlighting the mark with a circle; as if it would be located somewhere other than at the point where the ball passed the bat.
Come on Sky, surely you can find some better commentators. We know that Knight is eye candy for the ladies, but most cricket viewers are men. We like to hear our commentators either make insightful observations (like Atherton), give forthright opinions (like Boycott) or entertain us (like Bumble).
Poor old Knight does none of these things. He’s a nice bloke but the lousiest commentator on TV since the BBC employed Asif Iqbal as a guest summariser back in the late 1980s. Kevin Pietersen was right about him. Sorry, Nick.
James Morgan
I found it a very strange day -England were better in all three disciplines and looked fitter, faster and stronger. As a consequence, there was zero atmosphere due to the lack of crowd noise. I always felt England were going to win easily and whilst it was great to see England win, it was quite a dull match. Bopara is a strange player; his first twenty balls were quite a challenge and his foot movement seemed quite slow. However, once in, his touch and timing were very impressive. I know its a point Vaughan makes a lot on TMS but Bopara needs to be more more switched on at the start of his innings. To bat number 4 at the highest level, you cant afford to have a slow half an hour at the start of every innings.
Ha ha, you need to be careful the ECB might ban you from their media events if you criticise Knight! Beware Murdoch is after you…