England vs Australia: Chris Woakes trolls Josh Hazlewood with a fake shot

Australia locked horns with England in the third and final ODI International of three-match series on September 16 (Wednesday) at Emirates Old Trafford in Manchester. The England captain Eoin Morgan won the toss and elected to bat first. The hosts had a rocky start as the visitors got their first breakthrough in the form of opening batsman Jason Roy on the first ball of the match followed by vice-captain Joe Root who also went back to the pavilion on the second ball of the first over after scoring a duck.

However, the English team managed to pose a target of 302 runs on the board at the loss of seven wickets owing to a splendid knock of 112 off 126 by Jonny Bairstow. All-rounders Sam Billings and Chris Woakes also made notable contributions by adding 57 and 53 runs respectively to the team’s total. Mitchell Starc and Adam Zampa emerged as decent bowlers for Australia as they took three wickets each while Pat Cummins also took the wicket of Bairstow.

Chris Woakes confuses Josh Hazlewood with his batting stance

In the starting of the 50th over, England was playing at 288/7 and was heading towards a massive total. On the first ball of the last over, the on-strike batsman Woakes trolled the pacer Josh Hazlewood by hitting him for a boundary. Woakes pretended as he was preparing to scoop the ball over fine leg but at the end deflected the ball between the keeper and the third man for four.

Praising this blistering boundary by their batsman, the official Twitter handle of England Cricket tweeted, “Genius from Woaksey. We set Australia 303 to win.”

Chasing 303, the tourists looked dead and buried at 5-73 – the lowest score Australia’s fifth wicket has fallen in an ODI against England since 1977. However, the visitors made a solid comeback as Glenn Maxwell and Alex Carey together scripted a dramatic victory for their team by playing magnificent innings of 108 and 106 runs respectively.

For the hosts, Chris Woakes and Joe Root got two wickets each, while Jofra Archer and Adil Rashid got one each to their name. A record stand of 212 between Glenn and Alex helped Australia in winning the match by 3 wickets and clinching the series by 2-1. Maxwell was given the Man of the Match award for his brilliant performance with the bat.