CRICKET:SHANE WATSON expects his career-best unbeaten 161 will be quickly put into context when he visits his flood-stricken home town of Ipswich in Queensland today.
Watson inspired Australia to a six-wicket win in the first one-day international, batting through the innings to help chase down England’s 294 in Melbourne yesterday. Watson sealed victory with a six off Ajmal Shahzad and in doing so finished with the fifth highest score by an Australia batsman in limited-overs cricket.
But afterwards the 29-year-old admitted cricket had been the furthest thing from his mind this week following the effects of the floods in his home state.
The tragedy has claimed 18 lives so far and Watson revealed he would use a gap in the one-day schedule to fly to Ipswich, where his parents and sister still live, for the first time since the floods hit.
“It’s going to be heart-wrenching to see the devastation,” said Watson, who plans to aid the relief effort.
“My mind and my heart has been there, so it’s going to be nice to get up there and feel like I can actually help out in some way.
“I haven’t really been thinking about cricket too much, to be honest.
“It’s been all about what has been going on back home and also trying to organise things I can do after this game to help out in any way I can.
“It’s going to be great to get up to Ipswich and do everything I can to help out, whichever way that is. No doubt my mind has been there and I suppose that does free your mind when you are thinking about other things and does put a game of cricket into perspective.
“It’s nice to be able to put on a performance like this. Hopefully there’s a few people watching it who will get some encouragement.”
Watson will remain in Ipswich for two days before rejoining the Australia team ahead of Friday’s second match in Hobart.
England captain Andrew Strauss believes his side made too many errors after recording their highest limited-overs score against the world champions on Australian soil.
But despite setting that record, Strauss said his side were made to pay for not posting a score in excess of 300.
The skipper included himself in the blame for that failing after falling for 63 when well set, while fellow opener Steve Davies (43) and Ian Bell (23) got starts up the order.
The only other notable contributor thereafter was Kevin Pietersen’s 78 – his first half century in more than two years – before he was dismissed by a freak run out when Mitchell Johnson kicked the ball onto the stumps in the first over of the batting powerplay.
“We had a platform to maybe get 310-320 but too many of our batsmen got out too softly,” he said.
“A lot of us got off to good starts – myself, Davies and Bell – but we didn’t have anyone who played the Shane Watson innings and that was the difference.
“I suppose Pietersen getting out in the first over of the powerplay hurt us. If we had 310-320 it would have been very difficult for them to chase.
“In the end it was one of the outstanding one-day innings from Shane Watson.
It was a truly top-quality knock.”
Watson offered only one chance during his unbeaten innings, when Jonathan Trott spilled a difficult chance running backwards from mid-off when he was on 44.
But Strauss did not point the finger at Trott for his side’s inability to defend what was a record chase at the MCG, instead blaming a combination of mistakes.
“We didn’t strike with the new ball, the spinners bowled well but we weren’t able to squeeze as many wickets as we would have liked.” he added. “For us it’s just a case of doing little things a bit better than we did today.”
FIRST ONE-DAY INTERNATIONAL
(at Melbourne): England won the toss and batted.
ENGLAND
A Strauss c Clarke b Lee 63
S Davies b D Hussey 42
J Trott c Haddin b D Hussey 6
K Pietersen run out 78
I Bell c Clarke b Smith 23
E Morgan c White b Smith 8
M Yardy c M Hussey b Bollinger 9
T Bresnan c Doherty b Lee 28
G Swann c Doherty b Johnson 4
A Shahzad not out 8
C Tremlett c Haddin b Johnson 7
Extras (b2 lb1 w14 nb1) 18
Total (all out, 49.4 ovs) 294
Fall of wickets: 1-90, 2-100, 3-131, 4-174, 5-186, 6-236, 7-257, 8-271, 9-278.
Bowling: B Lee 9-0-43-2; D Bollinger 9-0-57-1; D Hussey 6-0-42-2; M Johnson 7.4-0-53-2; S Watson 8-0-44-0; X Doherty 7-0-40-0; S Smith 3-0-12-2.
AUSTRALIA
S Watson not out 161
B Haddin c Shahzad b Swann 39
M Clarke c Shahzad b Bresnan 36
S Smith c Yardy b Shahzad 5
M Hussey c Tremlett b Bresnan 21
C White not out 25
Extras (lb6 w3 nb1) 10
Total (for 4 wkts, 49.1 ovs) 297
Fall of wickets: 1-110, 2-213, 3-220, 4-244.
Did Not Bat: D Hussey, M Johnson, X Doherty, D Bollinger.
Bowling: T Bresnan 10-0-71-2; C Tremlett 10-0-67-0; A Shahzad 9.1-0-51-1; M Yardy 9-0-53-0; G Swann 10-0-42-1; J Trott 1-0-7-0.
Australia beat England by 6 wkts.
