CT 2017: Match 9, Who Said What: England vs Australia

The highly anticipated final match of Group A finally took place at the Edgbaston which has seen many battles between the old foes of the sport, England and Australia, locking horns against each other. This time around as well they treated us with yet another classic encounter and England came out triumphant in the match.

After winning the toss, Eoin Morgan put Steve Smith’s side to bat fist and would have been delighted to see the outcome in between the interval. Australia somehow gifted their wickets away on their way to post a total of 277. Travis Head was the lone warrior for the men in yellow as scored a handy 71. He was well supported by the partnership of Finch and Smith at the top of the order before they decided to give their wicket away.

England in reply had no answer to the spell of Hazlewood and Starc as they lost their top 3 batsmen with almost nothing on the board. But Stokes and Morgan repeated the heroics of Mahmudullah and Shakib and took their side towards victory. England won the match by 6 wickets by DLS method after rain abandoned the match. Ben Stokes was awarded man of the match for his incredible hundred. With this win, Australia was knocked out of the tournament and Bangladesh make a backdoor entry into the semi-finals, overtaking Australia and New Zealand.

Ben Stokes

MoM Ben Stokes expressed that he would take a lot of the innings a played today. Hew hoped that he continued to do well in the future. Giving credit to his partner, he stated that Morgan made his work easier. He also stressed on the importance of the Indian Premier League which helped him get exposed to situations like these.

It is going along nicely. It is a case of when I look back and feel that the training is a lot more consistent. Hopefully I can keep it going forward. We just wanted to get on with the game, especially when we are batting well together. When you have a guy striking as well as Morgan is you can take your time to get set. You get yourself exposed to big game moments in front of 30000 people which is similar to these situations. Physically I am good, the knee is fine, touchwood.

Eoin Morgan

The winning captain was quick to appreciate that it was through team effort only that they managed to win three out of three and guys peaking at the right occasion. He was proud of the fact that they brought the game back within their reach after the Australians were threatening to take the game away from them. He singled the spell from Mark Wood and Adil Rashid which helped them bring back into the game.

Things have gone pretty well, we’ve been lucky. We’ve found form and the guys performing makes us happy. Yeah, the bowling has done a good job. We took Australia from a commanding position to one where we thought was an easy chase or a below par chase. To get them down from there was outstanding. Adil Rashid bowled in the last ten overs, something he hasn’t done in the last few games. He is growing in confidence and it is glad to see.It is hard work getting high quality batsmen out; Mark (Wood) seems to have found some form.

When asked about whom they are expecting to meet at the semi-finals, Morgan stated that every team in going to bring out quality irrespective of their names and the greatest example was the Bangladeshi win yesterday. He revealed that the focus was to counter-attack after the loss of wickets.

Either side we face are going to be tough as was proved yesterday with Bangladesh turning New Zealand over. We need to play high quality cricket that is required. Hopefully we’d be able to produce something near the standards. (On the mood after early wickets) We just talked about wrestling back the momentum and building a partnership. It was a good wicket and they bowled well in getting us three down.

Steve Smith

Smith was the first one to confess that their standards in the tournament weren’t at par and losing wickets in clumps is never going to help against a side like England. He also applauded the efforts of Stokes and Morgan who took the game away from them. He also emphasised that rain breaks did not help their cause as it shifted the entire momentum of the game.

It is disappointing. We did not play our best game. We did well to start off with the bat but we lost I think five wickets for 15 runs. When you play against England we cannot afford that. We have played a lot of cricket and need to come out and play at the big stage. Today we did not do that and there were a few soft dismissals. After the rain break we weren’t up to our best with the bowling. Morgan and Stokesy played well and we gave them a few freebies as well. I think the balance was okay. The guys just did not step up and get those big scores. A few games did not go our way with the rain and on and off and losing a bit of momentum. You have got to take the onus as a top four and unfortunately nobody did that.