BBC Sport

 

Australia achieved their highest ever one-day international run-chase to seal victory over England in Sydney and take a 5-1 lead in the seven-match series.

In an improved England batting display, Jonathan Trott scored 137 to set a total of 333 - their highest against Australia in one-day internationals.

The home side's reply began positively, thanks largely to Shane Watson's 51.

England halted the hosts' progress with regular wickets, but Michael Clarke's 82 helped his side to a final-over win.

Australia's achievement is also their highest ever one-day total against England and the fourth highest ever run-chase by any side in ODI history, emphasising further the gulf that currently exists between these two sides.

Fuelled by their Ashes success, England came into this one-day series looking to build towards what seemed a genuinely realistic World Cup challenge, but due to poor form and fitness, such buoyant optimism has diminished in conjunction with their hopes of victory over these seven limited-overs matches.

Four defeats from the first five games made this, and the final encounter in Perth on Sunday, dead rubbers in lieu of the series, but with pride to restore and World Cup starting places to secure, they remain important fixtures and despite defeat the tourists' can take many positives from an improved showing than that in Brisbane last Sunday.

In truth, the match did not demonstrate anything we did not already know about England: Matt Prior remains a vulnerable opener, Andrew Strauss is a positive presence but prone to weak dismissals, Trott and Ian Bell are in superb form and Kevin Pietersen is not.

However, it is a timely boost for the team to post such a big total - their largest in ODIs against Australia and their joint-sixth highest of all time - albeit on a superb track.

It was not a strong England bowling performance overall, with attack-leader James Anderson particularly expensive, going for 91 from his 10 overs.

But on a good pitch - that will bear no similarity to that in the sub-continent - with two of the potential five bowlers for the World Cup sidelined through injury and Paul Collingwood's contribution with the ball completely nullified due to a back injury incurred in the first innings, it is difficult to use this as a wholly accurate barometer for future matches.

Collingwood was not the only injury concern during what was a gruelling encounter: Pietersen also spent time away from the action after slipping in the field and Trott needed a runner late in his innings due to cramp.

Having won the toss and opted to bat, the tourists made a tame and - in Prior's case - a somewhat nervy start to the innings, with the right-hander twice just evading fielders with attempted pulls from Brett Lee.

But just as the Sussex man seemed to have weathered the storm, he attempted to work a slight inswinger from Mitchell Johnson to leg and was bowled off his pads for 18.

At the other end, captain Strauss was a steadying influence, playing with calculated aggression to make his 26th one-day 50, during which he established a promising stand with Trott.

However, with the pair primed to kick on, Strauss came down the track to Steven Smith and with an attempted lofted stroke to leg was caught low down at mid-wicket by David Hussey for 63.

Pietersen's arrival gave England a more balanced batting pair, with the newcomer playing aggressor to Trott's pragmatist and the pair honoured their respective roles well to establish another good partnership.

This was undone in the first ball of the batting power-play when Lee returned with a replaced ball to have Pietersen caught by Smith at mid-off via a mistimed drive.

Fresh impetus was provided by Ian Bell, who accompanied Trott on route to his run-a-ball 100, while attacking with real purpose and inventiveness to add further credence to the argument that he should open the innings in place of Prior.

He and Trott added 104 runs in just over 11 overs together at a run-rate over two runs better than the team overall, before the Warwickshire man hit a flat, off-side swipe straight to Clarke at extra-cover off Shaun Tait.

Eoin Morgan provided a flashy little end-of-innings cameo but the overall plaudits belong to Trott, who amassed his highest score in ODIs and the biggest by an England batsman on this ground in one-day internationals.

He benefitted from a review on an LBW decision from Tait shortly after Pietersen was out - with replays showing the ball was missing down leg - but barring this, his classy innings was calm and composed.

In contrast to England, Australia began firmly on the front foot, with Watson in typically cavalier mood as they dominated England's bowlers and raced to 50 before the end of the sixth over.

Anderson found the going particularly tough but it was he who made the initial breakthrough, drawing a leg-side flick from Brad Haddin which saw Trott belie his previous exertions to acrobatically catch at short fine leg.

Immediately after the wicket, Strauss brought Michael Yardy into the attack and the decision paid dividend five overs later when Watson - who by this point had passed 50 at a strike-rate of 150 - sought to whip the spinner through leg but instead found the England captain, who claimed a diving catch at midwicket.

In a surprise move, Australia sent in Johnson as a pinch-hitting replacement for Watson and it worked superbly as he and Callum Ferguson added 79 between them to take Australia half-way towards their target and seemingly in control of the match.

This remained the case even when Ferguson inexplicably set off from the non-striker's end for a non-existent single and was run out four short of his half-century by Prior before he could scurry back and Johnson was stumped off Pietersen shortly after for 57.

Such was the momentum the home side had maintained throughout their innings, they were also able to absorb the loss of Cameron White - caught by Morgan off Steven Finn - and continue to push on.

That they were able to do so was largely thanks to Clarke, who put his recent poor form firmly behind him and built on the 54 he scored at Brisbane with a superb 82 off 70 balls.

He was ably assisted by Hussey, who scored 38 before he was caught behind by Prior off Finn - one of two wickets for the Middlesex seamer in 10 overs that went for 51.

Smith - for whom Haddin was a runner - was run out by Finn for a duck to briefly raise England's hopes and Clarke fell soon after to another run out, this time by Trott, but Lee and John Hastings kept cool heads to see Australia to victory with four balls to spare.

BBC Sport

 

England ended their tour of Australia with a crushing 57-run defeat in the final one-day international at Perth as the Australians won the series 6-1.

David Hussey (60) added 95 with Adam Voges, who made a career-best unbeaten 80 in 72 balls as Australia made 279-7.

England's reply began with both openers out for ducks in the first two overs.

Michael Yardy hit an unbeaten 60, his highest ODI score, while Matt Prior, playing as a batsman, made 39 but England were all out in the 44th over.

It was a wretched end to a tour that had so many highlights for England and they briefly head home before embarking on a World Cup campaign in the sub-continent about which they may now feel less confident of winning.

The 100th day of the trip down under was almost more notable for who was off the field rather than on it.

England had six players ruled out by injury, while Australia had nine on the sidelines, six through injury and three rested.

The tourists began promisingly enough and when Australia chose to bat in typically cloudless azure blue Perth skies, England's air miles attack, James Anderson and Liam Plunkett, captured a wicket apiece in the opening nine overs.

Plunkett, drafted in from the Lions tour of the Caribbean for only his second ODI since July 2007, dismissed Tim Paine lbw after a lengthy review and Anderson, who had two return visits home during the tour, had Callum Ferguson expertly taken by Andrew Strauss at solitary wide slip.

Brad Haddin, dropped by Yardy at second slip off Anderson in the first over, caused more dismay for the Lancastrian seamer when he launched the first ball of the bowling powerplay down the ground for six.

Yardy atoned when the wicketkeeper tried to hit another maximum and was unfortunate that England had put their tallest fielder on the long-on boundary.

Steven Finn was at full stretch and cleverly parried the ball up as his momentum took him towards the rope, then calmly walked back into the field of play and completed the catch.

When Yardy took a smart return catch to dismiss Cameron White, who made a strangely pedestrian 24 from 47 balls in his first match as Australia's stand-in ODI captain, Australia were meandering at 103-4 in the 26th over.

But it was a far from immaculate display in the field from England, not helped by a stiff easterly breeze, with three extra overs given away in wides.

Several half-chances were also spurned, and after Luke Wright failed to cling on to Hussey's drive off his own bowling when he had made only four, the fifth-wicket partnership revived the innings.

Hussey was quick to seize on anything short, pulling Yardy into the stand for six and quickly recording his sixth ODI fifty, with 31-year-old Perth local Voges an excellent, quietly efficient foil in only his 15th international.

Plunkett returned to bowl the 40th over and struck with his first ball when Hussey got a leading edge.

Anderson returned to take two more wickets, one courtesy of a stunning catch by Prior - playing as a batsman rather than keeping wicket for the first time in an ODI since 2006 - in his unfamiliar fielding role on the boundary, and finished with 3-48.

Whether England conceded more than they should have done seemed irrelevant when the captain departed second ball and the other leading batsmen followed with alarming alacrity.

Strauss will count himself unfortunate that Shaun Tait bowled seven wides on both sides of the wicket in his opening three overs but then produced a devastating delivery to him that swung late at 92mph and cannoned into the off-stump.

Wicketkeeper Steven Davies, unceremoniously discarded after making 42 in the first match of the series and then left out of the World Cup squad, returned to the top of the order but failed to grasp his opportunity when an ill-advised pull at Doug Bollinger skied straight up off the top edge.

Jonathan Trott had played numerous innings of defiance throughout the tour but even his powers of concentration appeared to wane as he cut to slip, while Kevin Pietersen played another frustrating knock, with three boundaries in his 26 before a tame sliced drive to backward point.

The concern was not the required rate but the fall of wickets, Ian Bell the fifth man to go, steering a late cut straight to third man.

Prior, who had come back into the one-day team to open, was deployed at number six to compensate for the loss of the injured Eoin Morgan, who remains a doubt for the World Cup with a fractured finger.

He briefly played with some style before driving to short extra cover to end a useful stand of 55 in 11 overs with the ever-resourceful Yardy.

Wright blazed a breezy 24 and Plunkett wielded a six in his 20 but Tait returned to claim two wickets in an over.

There was still time for Yardy to record his second ODI fifty and launch Bollinger over mid-wicket for six but England succumbed to the same emphatic series margin as in the one-day games that followed their 2009 Ashes home series victory.

Losing six out of seven matches will need to be addressed before England go into their first World Cup warm-up match against Canada in Fatullah on 16 February.

PlayerBrooker

Feb 28 2011, 11:05 PM

apparently the reason he wasn't in the World Cup squad was because England didn't want it to come out during the tournament