Champions Trophy, Feb 19 - March 9

[Arthur Crabtree]

No sweat.

[meninblue]

23 required in 24 balls. 350 was not safe here and Australia stand favorites to win this now. 2 points certain for Australia.

[meninblue]

Harry, Liam and Jos have let Ben and Joe's partnership down. Offcourse there may have ben times when those two failed and the remaining saved England. Howeveer, this was a 400 runs wicket which a specialist batter wont get daily. The disappointment of not cashing in today will certainly be there. That too being a CT match unlike a bilateral.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes, well done Aussies. Deserve to win for the chutzpah of bowling a part time spinner at the end of the innings, while England just did the usual.

[meninblue]

Credit to Adam Zampa, Smith's captaincy and the partnership between Josh Inglis and Alex Carey followed by a Maxwell cameo.

[mikesiva]

England 351-8

Duckett 165
Root 68

Dwarshius 3-66
Zampa 2-64
Labuschagne 2-41

Australia 356-5

Inglis 120*
Short 63
Carey 69
Labuschagne 47

Rashid 1-47
Livingston 1-47

That's 700 runs in a day! Who'd be a bowler?

[Durhamfootman]

I've been out, so just caught up

I guess the worst thing that I can say about England's inability to defend the highest total ever posted in a CT tournament is that it has not surprised me in the least

[andy]

That was a frankly embarrassing effort with the ball, attack too samey, carse had a shocker...jofra was awful in the field...we need more spin options teams play out Rashid because they know everything else is pace...if we can't defend 351 we don't deserve to win anything....real shame because ducketts innings was outstanding and didn't deserve to be in a losing cause

[sussexpob]

Wood averages over 50 a wicket @ over a run ball since 2023....

Longest contract ever given to an England player.....

85% of the time he is injured. 5% of the time hes bowling 97mph bouncers over the batsmans head. 5% of the time he's getting carted. 4% of the time hes bowled 20 overs of express pace and is now hovering arond 81mph throwing up pies...

That 1% when the series is already dead and he runs through a side though.... well worth his forever contract.

[backfootpunch]

I was surprised to see that wood averages 40 in ODI cricket

Looking at his record he had one good year. 2019. The rest of the time been rubbish.

Perhaps due to him actually staying fit in 2018-2019 playing 32 ODIS

Since 2019 he's been injured so often or rested to save him for his handful of test match appearances he's only played 18 more games

As a white ball side we are reaping what the ECB have sown

The combination of the creation of the hundred. Meaning the domestic 50 over competition is now a reserves competition. How can we possibly expect the younger players like jamie smith, harry brook, jacob bethell, gus Atkinson etc to possibly do well in a format they haven't played at all in county cricket.

Then we have the ridiculously bloated schedule which means the test match players can't play half of the white ball games. We are therefore putting out weak sides and losing.

Then add that our best white ball player of all time. Jos Buttler is either way past his best or being crushed by the pressure of captaincy. Much like the test captaincy did to root, he immediately became the player he was once it was taken off him. Really it should've been taken off him after the world cup disaster. But who can they give it to? It can't be a test player as they miss too many games and the only other players who play all the games are salt and livingstone and both are struggling.

Then also consider we have lost Roy, Bairstow, stokes, woakes and moeen Ali. To be fair to duckett he has replaced one of the openers but we've not replaced any of the others. It's the loss of stokes and moeen we are feeling most. They just can't balance the side without them.

Archer looks gone to me, he has no idea where the ball is going and seems content to laugh when his latest pie gets slapped to the boundary.

Then we have Rashid who always bowls well seemingly but the other teams know he's our only good bowler and just knock him around knowing the other overs are free runs, if thry can limit him to 1 wicket they know theyll win. His 10 overs went for 47, the other 40 overs went for 309.

This feels like what happened to the rugby team after they won the world cup in 2003.

The period between 2016-2019 when we dominated 50 over cricket under Morgan was very much the exception rather than the rule. The dark days are back.

Hopefully after iv said this we will beat Afghanistan and south africa then win the competition. That's how these things work sometimes. I'd be flabbergasted if we did though.

[alfie]

Agree with most of what you said there , backfootpunch.

All the players you mention - plus Plunkett , and Morgan of course - who have gone from the side since the glory days and only Duckett of all the new arrivals with anything like the same abilities in this format...while Buttler , Archer , Wood have all regressed from the players they were in 2019 ; so hardly surprising the team is struggling. At least Joe Root and Rashid remain reliable !

Just the same I think they should have won that one. Had opportunities to put it beyond Australia : first when they were 280/4 with ten overs left , only for Buttler to hole out and then Livingstone to both fail to get into gear and at the same time soak up too much strike from Duckett. Suddenly it was three overs left , 320 up but only bowlers and a tired Duckett to finish...if Archer hadn't whacked a few they'd have not passed 335 when 375+ was surely on the cards after the Duckett/Root stand.

Then again when Australia were 140/4 it only needed one more wicket - well maybe two - to settle the contest. Unfortunately we then saw Carey allowed to get "in" against Livingstone and Root , with Rashid withdrawn from the firing line and Wood not re-introduced quickly enough. In truth both the Aussies batted beautifully so nothing might have been effective but I did feel England rather failed to go for the throat when they should have. Still might have won but for some poor bowling from Carse in particular and a bad dropped catch ; but once the dew came down heavily with wickets in hand and the RRR under control the end was a bit predictable.

I had very modest hopes for England at this event for the reasons mentioned above. But I did fancy them to take an Australian side with a somewhat makeshift attack so am disappointed by this result. After seeing Afghanistan struggle against SA I still think they might be beatable ; but SA look sufficiently strong that getting to the semis is already looking very unlikely. An early exit here will surely lead to a "rebuild " strategy ...but in a Hundred-infested universe finding the right building blocks might be a difficult task...

[meninblue]

Pakistan win the toss and opt to bat first

[meninblue]

Pakistan replace injured Fakhar with Imam. India field same 11.

[meninblue]

Shami struggling in first over with 3 wides down the leg sideand 1 on the off. Pak 6 at end of first over. Very bad control over the line.

[meninblue]

Just one specialist spinner Abrari for Pakistan. India are fielding 3. The balance for conditions is way much better of this Indian team in comparison.