Australia open account with huge win over England

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015                                                                                     Date: 14/02/2015
Game 2

Australia Vs England at Melbourne Cricket Ground

The ICC Cricket World Cup began today with the co-hosts, Australia and New Zealand, facing the same opponents they have been playing against over the last one month. New Zealand hosted Sri Lanka in Christchurch and registered a big win. New Zealand are being viewed as serious contenders to the title. Fans and pundits around the world feel that this Kiwi team has the skillset, form and sense of togetherness required to shed the underdog title for good. Their team’s performance today gave another reason to the tiny nation to believe that they can come out of the shadow of their antipodean big brother and claim a place of their own in the cricketing pantheon of world conquering teams.

While the Kiwis were doing short work of the Sri Lankans, the Melbourne Cricket ground witnessed another chapter of Anglo-Australian rivalry today. Both the teams went in with some uncertainty over the team combination. The overnight rain in Melbourne added another dimension to the task of selecting the best XI. England finally chose to have Gary Ballance at No 3, leaving out the woefully out of form Ravi Bopara. They also entrusted Moeen Ali with the responsibility of being the sole spinner. Australia, as expected, decided to rest Michael Clarke. Like England, Australia also chose the part time off spin of Glenn Maxwell over the left arm spin of Xavier Doherty. Injury to James Faulkner had already ensured that both Mitchell Marsh and Shane Watson feature in the XI.

England won the toss and backed their bowling attack to put Australia on the back foot. It was a curious choice considering the benign drop-in pitch at Melbourne which offers little help to bowlers and usually stays true through-out the game. Maybe the England management was influenced by the overnight rain in Melbourne and with an extra batsman in the XI fancied their chances of hunting down any Australian total.

The innings did not begin very well for England, though. Chris Woakes let go a relatively simple chance in the very first over. James Anderson had slightly drifted down the leg side and the uppish flick from Aaron Finch’s bat was misjudged by Woakes in its height. Finch was on nought and made England pay via his brutal 135 off 128 balls laced with 12 hits to the fence and 3 over it. Most regrettably for England, this was not the only favour extended to him by them today. They let go off a couple of easy run-out chances and finally managed to see Finch’s back when Eoin Morgan scored a direct hit from mid-off. Finch left the MCG to a rousing applause having become only the fourth Australian batsman to hit a century on his World Cup debut. Curiously this was the first Australian century against England in the World Cups.

Earlier, today England opened the attack with Anderson and Broad, bringing Woakes at first change. Broad displayed his sense for occasion and right from the word go he was fast and accurate. In the 8^th over he beat Warner with pace and swing to disturb his wickets. On the very next delivery Shane Watson fell to a lovely out-swinger when he could do nothing but offer a genuine outside edge to the keeper. Steven Smith could not recreate his Bradman-esque form of the summer and fell cheaply to Chris Woakes. This brought the struggling George Bailey to the crease. He has been terribly out of touch and his struggles in the middle have been palpably embarrassing. However during the course of the next 26 overs and 146 runs he showed why the Australian management has stuck with him. He took his time, kept the scoreboard ticking and made life comfortable for Finch at the other end. With Bailey looking solid, Finch could go for his shots and was soon punishing England.

This partnership set the stage beautifully for Australia. Even their departure in the batting powerplay meant that Maxwell, Marsh and Haddin had just enough time to have a look in and then go berserk. Glenn Maxwell seems to have learnt to put a price on his wicket. He is so powerful and crafty that runs are never far away from him. Till now the only question was whether he has the mental discipline to choose his scoring shots and areas prudently. His batting in the last 5-6 games has given enough evidence that he is calming down in his approach. This only makes him extremely dangerous and with more time in the middle, in important games, he can very well become Australia’s answer to a certain AB De Villiers. Today, he started with singles and respected good deliveries instead of going after everything thrown at him. This allowed him to brutalise anything of poor line and length. As a result, without too much of blood and gore he managed 66 runs off 40 deliveries to propel Australia to 342 for the loss of 9 wickets.

Australia lost 9 wickets only due to Steven Finn’s 5 wicket haul which included a hat-trick in the 50^th over. Haddin, Maxwell & Mitchell Johnson fell to very good catches off the last three balls of the innings to give Finn and England something to clap their hands about.

A target of 343 in front of the MCG crowd was always going to be difficult for England and they showed no intensity or desire to go for it either. The innings was soon reeling at 92 for the loss of 6 wickets in the 22^nd over. None of the top-6 showed any stomach for a fight. Ali, Bell, Ballance, Morgan fell too easily to the traps laid down for them and in the process the young Mitchell Marsh claimed a five-for of his own. He was helped by some outstanding fielding by his team-mates, especially by Steven Smith’s Superman-like leap to interject Jos Buttler’s rasping drive at short cover.

Only Chris Woakes gave some company to the diminutive James Taylor who looked in fluent touch and was quite willing to experiment. He brought out lap-shots over fine-leg, reverse sweeps, upper cuts to stroke his way to 98 before the last man James Anderson was run out in the confusion over the LBW appeal against him. It so transpired that after the original decision from Aleem Dar to declare James Taylor leg before wicket was over-turned, Australia appealed for a run-out of James Anderson at the other end whom they had found short of his crease. This appeal was withheld and James Taylor was left stranded on 98, this time for sure.

Though Taylor’s fight-back gave some respectability to the English total, they were never in the hunt. Australian bowling was accurate and hostile. However, it would not be completely unfair to say that the outcome of the game was decided after the first innings. This is a long tournament and the top 8 teams have a very good chance of qualifying for the knock-outs. England, however, must find some form and consistency if they do not wish to make this group stage harder for themselves than it should be.