England Slump To Heavy Defeat in Final ODI....

England ended their tour of Australia with a crushing 57-run defeat in the final one-day international at Perth as the Australians won the series 6-1.

David Hussey (60) added 95 with Adam Voges who made a career-best unbeaten 80 in 72 balls as Australia made 279-7.
England's reply began with both openers out for ducks in the first two overs.

Michael Yardy hit an unbeaten 60, his highest ODI score while Matt Prior, playing as a batsman, made 39 but England were all out in the 44th over.

It was a wretched end to a tour that had so many highlights for England and they briefly head home before embarking on a World Cup
campaign in the sub-continent about which they may now feel less confident.

The 100th day of the trip down under was almost more notable for who was off the field rather than on it.

England had six players ruled out by injury, Australia had nine on the sidelines, six through injury and three rested.

The tourists began promisingly enough and when Australia chose to bat in typically cloudless azure blue Perth skies, England's air miles attack, James Anderson and Liam Plunkett, captured a wicket apiece in the opening nine overs.

Voges anchored the innings with his second ODI fifty

Plunkett, drafted in from the Lions tour of the Caribbean for only his second ODI since July 2007, dismissed Tim Paine lbw after a lengthy review and Anderson, who had two return visits home during the tour, saw Callum Ferguson expertly taken by Andrew Strauss at solitary wide slip.

Brad Haddin, dropped by Yardy at second slip off Anderson in the first over, caused more dismay for the Lancastrian seamer when he launched the first ball of the bowling powerplay down the ground for six.

Yardy atoned when the wicketkeeper tried to hit another maximum and was unfortunate that England had put their tallest fielder on the long-on boundary.

Steven Finn was at full stretch and cleverly parried the ball up as his momentum took him towards the rope, then calmly walked back into the field of play and completed the catch.

When Yardy took a smart return catch to dismiss Cameron White, who made a strangely pedestrian 24 from 47 balls in his first match as

Australia's stand-in ODI captain, Australia were meandering at 103-4 in the 26th over.

But it was a far from immaculate display in the field from England, not helped by a stiff easterly breeze, with three extra overs in wides.

Several half-chances were also spurned, and after Luke Wright failed to cling on to Hussey's drive off his own bowling when he had made only four, the fifth-wicket partnership revived the innings.

Hussey was quick to seize on anything short, pulling Yardy into stand for six and quickly recording his sixth ODI fifty, with 31-year-old Perth local Voges an excellent, quietly efficient foil in only his 15th international.

Plunkett returned to bowl the 40th over and struck with his first ball when Hussey got a leading edge.

Anderson returned to take two more wickets, one courtesy of a stunning catch by Prior - playing as a batsman rather than keeping wicket for the first time in an ODI since 2006 - in his unfamiliar fielding role on the boundary, and finished with 3-48.

Whether England conceded more than they should have done seemed irrelevant when the captain departed second ball and the other leading batsmen followed with alarming alacrity.

Strauss will count himself unfortunate that Shaun Tait bowled seven wides on both sides of the wicket in his opening three overs but produced a devastating delivery to him that swung late at 92mph and cannoned into the off-stump.

Wicketkeeper Steven Davies, unceremoniously discarded after making 42 in the first match of the series and then left out of the World Cup squad, returned to the top of the order but failed to grasp his opportunity when an ill-advised pull at Doug Bollinger skied straight up off the top edge.

Jonathan Trott had played numerous innings of defiance throughout the tour but even his powers of concentration appeared to wane as he cut to slip, while Kevin Pietersen played another frustrating knock, with three boundaries in his 26 before tame sliced drive to backward point.

The concern was not the required rate but the fall of wickets, Ian Bell the fifth man to go, steering a late cut straight to third man.
Prior, who had come back into the one-day team to open, was deployed at number six to compensate for the loss of the injured Eoin Morgan, who remains a doubt for the World Cup with a fractured finger.

He briefly played with some style before driving to short extra cover to end a useful stand of 55 in 11 overs with the ever-resourceful Yardy.
Wright blazed a breezy 24 and Plunkett wielded a six in his 20 but Tait returned to claim two wickets in an over.

There was still time for Yardy to record his second ODI fifty and launch Bollinger over mid-wicket for six but England succumbed to the same emphatic series margin as in the one-day games that followed their 2009 Ashes home series victory.

Losing six out of seven matches is unlikely to be part of some elaborate England strategy and much will need to be addressed going into the first World Cup warm-up match against Canada in Fatullah on 16 February.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/9386084.stm

It was an altogether disaster of a ODI series. Just goes to highlight the massive difference there is between Test match cricket and ODI's.

Totally agree, not ideal preperation for the WC and with Morgan now out injured we could struggle.

In fairness, Morgan is not in the best of form so it could be a good thing. I did'nt really hold any high hopes for England at the WC anyway.