BILLINGS: IT’S TIME TO RAMP UP PRESSURE
One-day International
ENGLAND have promised to take a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to the Aussies as they try to hit back and keep the one-day series alive. In a quickfire three-match series Australia can wrap things up with a second successive win at Old Trafford today while England’s World Cup winners must respond immediately.
Their typically flamboyant and powerful top order were shackled by outstanding opening bursts from Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins.
And Friday centurion Sam Billings is clear on where England need to improve if they are to hit back and stop Australia’s in-form pace attack from stifling them.
“The key message from us is we play our best when we get on the front foot and put people under pressure,” said Billings.
“They bowled exceptionally well on Friday and conditions were different to the normal wickets in this country where we can go out and play fluently from ball one.
“In these conditions it might differ from the gung-ho approach. It’s going to be on the same pitch so we might not be going all guns blazing but coming up with better gameplans.
“It’s about being smarter and assessing conditions straight away and running hard and putting pressure on them.
“The defeat will provoke a bit of a reaction and we’ll come back firing. It’s about still being positive, having a positive intent and not taking a backward step.”
Australia are expecting a backlash, too, with England feeling the pain of defeat and missing out on World Cup
Super League points.
All-rounder Mitch
Marsh scored 73 and admitted: “We spoke in the change rooms straight after the game. They are the
No.1 team for a reason, they will come back at us and we’ll have to make sure we are up for the fight.”
Billings showed the value of playing a smarter type of knock as he scored his first one-day international hundred in his 19th match.
Amazingly, it has taken more than five years for Billings to play the same amount of matches Eoin Morgan does in a year, showing just how few and far between his chances have been.
And he knows that the man he is replacing, Ben Stokes, will most likely walk straight back into the team when he is available. However, Billings has managed to make it to the front of
the queue as the spare batsman ahead of Tom Banton, Joe Denly, James Vince and Dawid Malan and that is where he intends to stay.
He added: “Ben Stokes isn’t here and I don’t think, however many I score, I’ll keep that spot. All I can do is put performances in.
“As long as you are putting yourself in the right position to be the next cab off the rank, you never know when these opportunities will arise.
‘‘It’s a huge incentive to the guys coming in to really put a marker down.”
STEVE SMITH has been cleared to return to the Aussie side after passing two concussion tests following a blow to the head in the nets last Thursday. Smith who pulled out of Friday’s game as a precaution, suffered a delayed concussion last summer after being felled by a Jofra Archer bouncer at Lord’s and missed the Headingley
Test as a result.