England lose to Australia

ICC Men’s World Cup Cricket at the Lord’s

England Vs Australia

 Australia 285-7 (50 ov), Finch 100 off 116, 11 fours, 2 sixes , Warner 53 off 61,6 fours, Smith 38 off 34 , 5 fours, Carey 48 off 27, 5 fours, Woakes 2-46, Archer 1-56, Wood 1-59, Stokes 1-29, Moeenb 1-42.

 England 221 ao ( 44.4 ov) Stokes 89 off115, 8 fours, 2 sixes, Woakes 26 off 34, 2 fours, Behrendorff 5-44, Starc 4-43, Stoinis 1-29.

 Australia win by 64 runs

 England’s world cup hopes hang in balance after a demoralising defeat by Australia by 64 runs, which means they might need to win both their last two games beginning with India at Edgbaston on Sunday, in order to make the last four. The results of other matches of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan who are all sitting on the wings.

Although England did well to restrict Australia to 285-7, especially after captain Aaron Finch’s century helped his team to 173-1. England’s poor bowling lengths were punished by an opening stand of 123 between Aaron Finch and David Warner. England fielding was scruffy when Jos Butler missed the opportunity to stump Usman Khawaja off Adil Rashid.

Root was trapped by Starc, Morgan, then Bairstow holed out Stokes and Buttler then added 71 before Khawaja’s superub running catch on the boundary to remove Butler. Stoke lifted two sixes off the Same Glenn Maxwell over, his stand of 53 with Woakes gradually restoring belief to Lord’s. Stokes was out for an unplayable delivery from Starx.

Accurate Australian attach in conditions ideally suited pace bowling ripped England’s top order and at 53-4 their chase was in tatters.

Australia with this sixth win from seven games takes them to 12 points, top of the table and assured of a place in the semi-finals.

Pat Cummins was excellent, Behrendorff claimed 5-44, with Starc taking 4-43, all backed by smart captaincy by Aaron Finch and equally sharp fielding, by Maxwell who brilliantly offloaded to Finch to have Woakes caught at cow corner.

Australian captain Aaron Finch said “ You don’t win the tournament if you don’t reach semi-finals. That’s the first bit ticked off> England are a stand-out side, they are a team that can take you apart at stages. We found ways to keep getting wickets.”

England captain Eoin Morgan “ We’re not feeling the pressure of being favourites. We are in charge of how we go from here on in. We win two games, we definitely go through. It’s a matter of producing that performance in one, if not both of those.”