Sport

Poor day at the office as Strauss laments defeat

CRICKET: ENGLAND’S LAST two weeks in Australia will feel like a couple of aeons if they lose again tomorrow to go 3-0 down in…

PAUL WEAVER in Hobart
Sat Jan 22 2011 - 00:00

CRICKET:ENGLAND'S LAST two weeks in Australia will feel like a couple of aeons if they lose again tomorrow to go 3-0 down in this seven-match one-day series.

The players arrive in Sydney today with much to think about. In the first match, in Melbourne, they were 20 to 30 runs short of the total they should have achieved but it still took one of the great one-day innings, played by Shane Watson, to overhaul them.

Here, well though Shaun Marsh played for his century (he was not considered good enough to make Australia’s World Cup squad), it should not have been a match-winning innings as the home side could only muster 230. Andrew Strauss, the England captain, was hardly over-stating the case when he said: “It was a very poor day.”

England got it wrong in the field and again when it was their turn to bat. However, their biggest mistake was made before a ball was bowled when they decided to go into the game with two spinners instead of the extra seamer.

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Strauss gauged the conditions sufficiently well to choose to bowl when he won the toss following substantial morning rain. And there was a desire to have a look at James Tredwell, who will be England’s spare spinner in the World Cup. But Chris Woakes or Luke Wright should have played at the expense of Tredwell or Michael Yardy. Strauss admitted the error. “In hindsight we probably should have got the fourth seamer in our side, and that was our mistake,” he said. “We didn’t think it would have been that stodgy a pitch so a Wright or Woakes would have been a good addition.”

Even so, Australia should not have been allowed to reach 230 after being 142 for eight. The stand of 100 in 20 overs between Marsh and Cameron White stabilised the innings and a more improbable alliance between Marsh and Doug Bollinger yielded 88 from 70 balls.

When England batted Matt Prior, making his ODI comeback, made a duck and the only batsmen to establish themselves were Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott, but both were out for 32, dismissals as soft as a goose-feather pillow.

“It was a poor performance with the bat,” Strauss said. “Chasing that sort of score you need one guy to get 80-odd. There were too many 20s and 30s and too many early wickets. Ultimately it just wasn’t a good performance.”