Eng Aus ODI 2: England Struggle, But Australia Did as Well

It was a strange match by any reckoning. The way Brett Lee was celebrating the final wicket of Paul Collingwood and the Australians congratulated each other, one would have thought that Australia had overcome a Herculean effort to win the World Cup!

brett lee2

Australia faltered in setting a target. Their saving grace was in the fact that the hosts have failed to have their top order trigger for impact.

Australia's target creating at Lord's in the second ODI became another affair that surrounded the efforts of Callum Ferguson, and Cameron White.

It was a strange innings by all counts because Australia performed in patches, struggled in patches and failed to convince any one about their invincibility as three time World Cup holders.

aus win

Ferguson scored his second half century of the ODI series in succession to save Australia from a horrible collapse, this after managing to get Shane Watson and Tim Paine in a sixty-two run partnership for the opening wicket in the midst of a disciplined England attack.

Luke Wright gave England the double breakthrough at seventy-three for three, and it required the resources of White to partner Ferguson and even then but for the efforts of Mitchell Johnson for an unbeaten forty-three, Australia would have struggled to defend the total.

Another on par score of 249 was magnified into more as the familiar tale of the England top order struggle continued to be the talking point.

After the opening partnership of seventy-three in which Andrew Strauss, the England captain, made forty-seven, England had little to write home about. Australia's pace of Brett Lee, Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Bracken shared wickets all round as England simply trailed away into a pale shadow.

It was Paul Collingwood whose half century kept England fans interested, but even then knew that their team was going to come up short, this time by thirty-nine runs as Australia took a 2-0 lead.

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