Billings’ ton is all in vain
Brilliant knock can’t stop Aussies
England got their World Cup-winning band back together last night but could not summon up the rhythm of that tumultuous lord’s day in what was more like an ashes battle than a one-day match against australia.
Even though Jonny Bairstow, battling through a difficult start, made a hard-earned 84 in a partnership of 113 with Sam Billings, England could not quite recover from losing their first four wickets for 57 in pursuit of 295 to win this first of three 50-over games.
nine members of the side who thrashed australia by eight wickets en route to that first-ever England World Cup win started this season-concluding 50-over series. Only Ben Stokes, still on compassionate leave, and liam Plunkett, shown the door maybe a year or so too soon, were missing from that crushing semi-final triumph, with Eoin Morgan able to call on the bulk of his big guns for the first time in over a year.
But an empty Emirates Old Trafford was in sharp contrast to that pulsating packed house at Edgbaston as australia produced a commanding display of their own with a good old-fashioned display of Test-style cricket.
First a one-day international that looked to be going England’s way was transformed by veteran finisher glenn Maxwell, who had not played a 50-over match for his country since that humbling day in Birmingham.
Then, when England were asked to make what would have been a record Old Trafford chase, they came up against the formidable pace attack that did so much to retain the ashes for australia last year in Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.
England could not provide their trademark big hitting, nor even find a way to win ugly, as Morgan wants them to prove they can do, as australia claimed only their third 50-over victory in 14 games against the world champions and no 1 ranked team.
at least there was a positive vision of an ashes future in England’s bowling through the rapid pace of Mark Wood and Jofra archer and the attacking leg-spin of adil Rashid.
If England are to have any chance of improving on their 5-0 and 4-0 defeats in australia on their visit next year then they must have fast bowling and wrist spin in their armoury and here they had both.
Even though 50 overs provides a different challenge to Test cricket, there was ashes encouragement for England in seeing david Warner bowled by a snorter of a 90mph delivery from archer.
It was the third time archer had dismissed Warner in his three innings so far on this white-ball tour and, together with Stuart
Broad’s mastery of England’s bete noire in the last ashes, this was another marker for battles ahead.
archer has looked more comfortable with a white ball in his hand than a red one this summer and he was impressive on his return to the one-day side, notably when he recovered from being hit for successive sixes by Maxwell.
The bowling star of that World
Cup win got his man immediately after those two mighty blows when Maxwell dragged a slower ball on to his stumps and archer added a third wicket in Cummins to finish on three for 57.
If anything his partner in speed was even better, Wood claiming aaron Finch with his first ball in 50-over cricket since that final at lord’s last year, timed at 92 mph, and going on to take three slightly cheaper wickets of his own. But the most intriguing performance again came from Rashid, surely the best white-ball spinner in the world but still a reluctant red-ball one who will take a lot of persuading before he commits to England’s Test future.
Here the man who proved so effective in England’s 2-1 Twenty20 success was at it again, claiming the key wicket of Marnus labuschagne and bamboozling the australia batsmen in a good England bowling display.
But from the depths of 123 for five australia, missing Steve Smith after he was hit on the head in training on Thursday, were saved by Maxwell and Mitch Marsh.
They added 126, an australia 50-over record for the sixth wicket against England, and propelled their side to a formidable total on the sort of tacky Old Trafford pitch Morgan insisted he wanted on the eve of the series.
It looked even more formidable when the outstanding Hazlewood produced a stunning reflex catch off his own bowling to dismiss Jason Roy, before ending Joe Root’s painful stay at the crease on his return to the England side. and with australia leg-spinner adam Zampa accounting for Morgan and Jos Buttler, with the help of another terrific catch, this time from labuschagne, England looked down and out.
Bairstow gave them some hope, not least when he hit Zampa for two sixes in an over, but once he fell to the best catch of the lot in the deep from Hazlewood there was no way back for England.
Billings, preferred to an extra bowler, did his chances of further opportunities no harm by going on to a brilliant career-best 118 but it was not enough as England fell 19 runs short on 275 for nine.