BUTTLER CENTURY STEERS ENGLAND TO SERIES SWEEP
JOS BUTTLER’S superb 110 not out saw England to a dramatic one-wicket, whitewashclinching win over Australia in the fifth one-day international at Old Trafford yesterday. Victory meant England completed their first 5-0 series sweep of Australia in any format in more than 140 years of international men’s matches between the archrivals. Set just 206 to win, England slumped to 114 for eight. They were still 11 runs shy of victory at 195 for nine when Adil Rashid (20), who had helped Buttler add 81, was dismissed to leave England 195 for nine. But Buttler responded by hitting part-time seamer Marcus Stoinis for six to complete a hundred off 117 balls – the first time the usually rapid-scoring wicketkeeper-batsman had faced more than 100 balls at this level. Last man Jake Ball held his nerve and Buttler won the match on his Lancashire home ground with nine balls to spare when he hit Stoinis for four as England finished on 208 for nine. It was a win celebrated by raucous cheers from a 23,500 capacity sundrenched crowd, some of whom had previously enjoyed the goals the England football team scored in a 6-1 World Cup rout of Panama. “It’s pure elation, isn’t it?,” said Buttler, both the man-of-the-match and man-of-the-series. “Winning games when you didn’t deserve to, they’re almost the more enjoyable ones.” England captain Eoin Morgan praised Buttler for managing “to get us over the line somehow”.