Australia v England: 3rd ODI, Sydney

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Australia:
DA Warner, AJ Finch, SE Marsh, MJ Clarke*, GJ Maxwell, DT Christian, BJ Haddin†, JL Pattinson, JP Faulkner, NM Coulter-Nile, XJ Doherty

England:
AN Cook*, IR Bell, GS Ballance, EJG Morgan, RS Bopara, JC Buttler†, BA Stokes, TT Bresnan, SCJ Broad, CJ Jordan, JC Tredwell

Haddin's keen eye spotted 5 men outside the circle. He is so on top of his and everyone else' game at the moment.   

I hope he wins the Allan Border Medal tomorrow night. He really deserves it for his remarkable year with bat, gloves and cricketing mind.

They are also going to induct Mark Waugh and Belinda Clarke into our Cricket Hall of Fame.

Was thinking of that as part of the leadership KP. Replace the lot. Fresh start.

Haddin has been outstanding throughout.

Australia have had two leaders out on the field this year compared to England's none.

Ah...this is the life.

Wake up on an easy Sunday morning, to find Australia strolling to another easy victory.

Honestly England, is there no fight left? Is there no heart, no pride? At least when we got battered in 2006/7 and in the UAE, there was something minor salvaged in the ODI series.

This is pathetic. It's the lowest of the low. Do you not know you're playing for England, the proudest nation of them all? England deserves better than this gutless shambles.

Hi folks and a warm welcome to Sanga,

From Friday's firecracker to a damp squib today.

I started watching when Australia were 30/0 off about 5. We've never looked in it during that time.

Appreciate Cook can only play with the cards he has but too often seems to lack inspiration and innovation.

Very disappointing.

Shaun Marsh if he can retain form is a test match batsman.....i always thought highly of him since I saw him in IPL-1 bringing calm , composed inning building for Punjab in an otherwise frentic format.

Inspite of the crushing win...they need a settled No. 3 and No.6...........Watson is more a No.6

Commiserations Guildford, Alfie, Duty and all the other England fans.

I'm a little surprised myself at the ease of that win.
I was sort of expecting a few more hiccups from our blokes but they kept their concentration levels up and finished the job.

Thanks for the welcome Guildford.

The worrying thing was the processional nature of that victory.

It wasn't even as if England dropped a few catches at key moments or had a few near misses that could have gone either way. It was just very very comfortable.

Sangakkara wrote:Thanks for the welcome Guildford.

The worrying thing was the processional nature of that victory.

It wasn't even as if England dropped a few catches at key moments or had a few near misses that could have gone either way. It was just very very comfortable.

Exactly.

Nick Knight's summing up on Sky was - ''Too easy''.

Another welcome to Sangakkara from me. Hope you'll stick around. Do check out the HoF threads.

As to the game, well a bit of a thrashing really. I only saw the last 15 overs or so; I thought Cook did actually try a couple of things, but without conviction; he's clearly not an intuitive type of captain (that is itself doesn't make him a bad captain; Ponting, Strauss weren't particularly intuitive either, neither is Graeme Smith...), and it looked like he was trying at times to force the issue but didn't really back himself.

The one thing I would have tried is bring mid-on and mid-off up to Marsh against the spinners. Because of his somewhat upright technique Marsh isn't the best at using his feet (the more upright you are, the tougher it is to judge the flight of the ball).

The simple fact is really though that England without Anderson, Finn and KP, and with Cook and Root severely struggling simply aren't a very good ODI side. On the other hand Australia have good balance, a good number of bowling options with good variety, and strong batting all the way down. They also have confidence on their side. I am just not sure that there are any obvious solutions for England right now.

Play more positively with the bat is an obvious one, and going purely by the scorecard it seems Stokes and Ballance struggled a bit. But Ballance is trying to cement his place and Stokes was (in an interesting move, which I don't mind, but didn't come off today) playing in an unaccustomed position.

Then again it is easier to be positive with the bat when your 2 openers are Finch and Warner, then when they are Cook and Bell. This is not meant as a slight on Cook and Bell, but England (apart from KP) simply don't have a top-order option who can score at those kind of rates. You look at the next guys in line - the likes of Carberry and co - and you can't seriously conclude they would do a lot better.

Perhaps it is the wider England game which needs to take a look at how it approaches limited overs, but then a lot of that is surely down to conditions; the guys who come through the county ranks will have played a lot of matches on early season stickies (before they made the step up to county cricket) and it is simply not a viable option to bat like Warner or Finch on those. Perhaps the option is to promote the more free-playing middle-over players once they get to county cricket (as say Middlesex have done with Dawid Malan with some success). Maybe global warming will take care of it...

Looking forward I would definitely like to take a look at Overton. Possibly give Briggs a game as well.

Australia will rest Clarke, and maybe Haddin. I would like Doolan to get a game (he looked compact in the T20 I saw, but it's hard to judge). I agree with KPF that Marsh should be a contender for a test spot; he had one shocking series against India, but prior to that his test record was very good, and it has always flumoxed me a bit how far he fell off the radar after that. I think he scored a good 40odd in South Africa last time when Clarke made his sensational hundred?

How did Pattinson look?

Hi Mike

Pattinson rather went round the park...mainly due to Cook playing a passable initiation of Warner    and racing off at six or seven per over...unfortunately he fell to an excellent catch , the first of several and it was downhill from there. But Pattinson was a bit loose.
It was interesting though to see Cook and Bell going hard and reaching fifty in eight overs. Doherty was introduced very early ; and he and Maxwell completely smothered Ballance and Stokes once Bell had been run out (more brilliant fielding ) . In fact the Australian fielding was the main feature of the day for me. And of course another Warner blitz...

Nowhere near as compelling as the match in Brisbane , but you can't have one day classics every day.

England got a more balanced outfit today, but that hasn't changed the results. Alastair Cook batted positively, but when nothing goes in your favor, it really doesn't. Maxwell had taken Cook out with a good catch in the last game as well, yet again he fell to a fine catch. James Tredwell bowled well, but the rest of the bowling could just not step up. Broad went for a few, Jordan and Stokes did the same, and even the EconoMaster went at 7 an over!.
In the remaining games, think England should give Overton and Briggs some game time, a win somewhere would be nice as well.

Comes to something when Ravi Bopara is your best bowler, again

By the way Michael Clarke wants to go back to taking the fielder's word on catches.
Hmmm!. Lets not go there again, Michael!.

msp83 wrote:By the way Michael Clarke wants to go back to taking the fielder's word on catches.
Hmmm!. Lets not go there again, Michael!.

Like Warner you mean? Mind you he did for a short while...

As you say let's not go there...

Is Overton out there? Thought he was back in England working on strength and conditioning/injured?

Mike Selig wrote:

msp83 wrote:By the way Michael Clarke wants to go back to taking the fielder's word on catches.
Hmmm!. Lets not go there again, Michael!.

Like Warner you mean? Mind you he did for a short while...

As you say let's not go there...

It'll be contentious to fix a start point for the history if we are to go back.
As we both agree, better not to go there at all!.......

JDizzle wrote:Is Overton out there? Thought he was back in England working on strength and conditioning/injured?

That's what I thought. I believe the only unused frontline bowlers in this ODI squad are Woakes and Briggs.