London: A dramatic late batting collapse of four wickets in 14 balls has seen Australia slump to a two-run loss against England in Southampton, their first international match since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March.
At one stage in their pursuit of 163 to win, Australia needed just 40 runs to win from 39 balls with nine wickets in hand after David Warner and Aaron Finch had added 98 for the first wicket.
But the tourists lost 4-9 in less than three overs to hand all the responsibility to the recalled Marcus Stoinis (23no from 18 balls), who muscled one six late on but couldn’t secure the 15 runs required in the final over for victory.
Australia managed just one boundary in the final six overs – the six from Stoinis with five balls remaining – and conceded eight dot balls in that time as well as losing five wickets.
Winning skipper Eoin Morgan, said, :Statistically you can never win the game in the first ten overs, you’re always chasing in the back ten. The bowlers came good in the last overs for us with Adil (Rashid) taking two wickets to expose that middle order. It was difficult for them under lights on a slow wicket. Tom Curran has carried on from a brilliant winter in New Zealand and South Africa where he led the attack with Chris Jordan. He was really calm in the last two overs. We always show faith in the guys coming in at seven and eight with task cut out.’
Aussie captain Aaron Finch said, ‘We knew England would come back hard. They executed it really well. We struggled to find a boundary in that 12-18 over phase but the boys will keep learning from this. If you can separate the gameplan and the execution, we were okay, but we just needed to find a match-winning contribution.’