Strauss hits out as sloppy England toil
ENGLAND captain Andrew Strauss lamented his side’s poor batting display as Australia opened up a 2-0 lead in the second one-dayer of the seven-match series at Lord’s.
Chasing 250 to win, England looked comfortable at 74-0, only for four top order wickets to fall for just 23 runs.
Paul Collingwood tried his best to recover the situation, batting bravely for 56, but soft wickets at the other end saw England slump 210 all out – 39 short of target.
“We should have won this one,” a dejected Strauss said afterwards. “We can’t let chances like this slip through our fingers. We lost wickets at regular intervals.
“Fair play to Australia, but we were the architects of our own donwnfall.
“We were in a good position to win the comfortably and then we let them back in. We kept talking about the batsmen making a score. We haven’t done that in two games, we are aware of it and need to get better.”
Wholesale changes are now expected for the third one-dayer at the Rose Bowl on Wednesday although Strauss must also shoulder some of the responsibility.
He batted well for his 47 until he fired one straight back at spinner Nathan Hauritz, and then failed to bring in the power play until the 46th over when it was all too late.
In fairness, England bowled well at the Aussies with Graeme Swann (2-31) and Luke Wright (2-52) taking care of the Australian middle order which had Callum Ferguson (55) to thank for holding the innings together.
Indeed, Australia appeared to be lagging at 179-6 until spectacular cameo from Mitchell Johnson turned the match on its head – the pace bowler hitting 43no from just 23 balls to take his side to an unlikely 249-8.
Owais Shah’s ridiculous run-out when England needed to consolidate in the middle order summed up another frustrating afternoon, while Middlesex’s Eoin Morgan, in for the harshly-axed Adil Rashid, could only make 14.
Collingwood aside, England failed to learn any lessons from their defeat at The Oval 48 hours previous and now have their work cut out if they are to salvage the series.