Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE FOURTH ODI, ADELAIDE FORGET 8-5, STAYONTHE ATTACK
Morgan urges his ODI big-hitters to carry on swinging despite their worst ever start to a match
FOURTH ODI SCOREBOARD
EOIN MORGAN has told his one-day kings to keep attacking Australia’s bowlers even though they suffered their worst-ever start to a game.
Never in their history had England lost their first five wickets for fewer than the eight runs they scored here on Australia Day with home pace stars Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood on fire.
But the England skipper was hardly about to start taking his players to task over their attacking instincts.
That hasn’t been Morgan’s style for the past three years and he is not about to change now, only asking that his batsmen just get a little better against better bowling.
“The difference was the first 10 overs,” said Morgan. “We need to just get better at playing better balls.
“Finding a balance in taking the game to them but also getting through a tough period was a tricky balance to find.
“We don’t want to lose our positive mindset, but it is a balancing act. We don’t want to wipe 10 overs out of the game and say ‘they bowled well and we’ve only got 15 runs’.
“I still want us to keep taking the game forward. I’d rather we were 40-2 than 20-0 and we just need to get better at playing that way.”
And yet somehow 8-5 was turned into 196 all out thanks to Chris Woakes, and restricting Australia to a three-wicket win when it should have been far easier.
Coping with the best bowlers in the world is easier said than done of course, but with Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root all getting out to big shots in conditions favouring those bowlers, they will know where they went wrong.
Alex Hales and Jos Buttler were on the receiving end of good balls, while Morgan and Moeen Ali had one or two close shaves as they tried to avoid complete and utter humiliation.
The fact that they not only avoided embarrassment but actually went on to make a real game of things was all down to Woakes and his 78, which was simply a continuation of his stellar series with the bat in hand.
“You go out there and try to hit the ball, hit the gaps a bit harder I suppose,” said Woakes. “I can’t put my finger on it, I just feel like I’m hitting the ball nicely.”
England needed something special with the ball, but with Travis Head (above) making 96, it never really arrived despite Aussie skipper Steve Smith declaring that the rest of his batsmen needed to have a ‘hard look at themselves’ before Perth tomorrow.