Australia have picked a strong squad for the limited-overs fixtures, which include a Twenty20 clash with England and a five-match ODI series, with stalwarts David Warner, Shane Watson, Mitchell Starc and Glenn Maxwell all picked. While Ballance was clearly short of form and faced questions over his technique, his battling 61 in the first Test at Cardiff was an innings of significant importance and should not be forgotten.
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Sarah Taylor hit 50 from just 43 balls and England’s captain Charlotte Edwards 39 from 42 as the pair put on 77 for the second wicket to help England on the way to an impressive win inside 18 overs.
The Hampshire batsman, who only needs 14 runs to be this season’s top scorer in the Natwest T20 Blast, was left out of the team that played New Zealand two months ago. “The inconsistency (of England) has come more than anything from their inexperience”.
“When people are drunk that’s what they do but I thought it was a bit inappropriate the way he went about that stuff so I went over and tried to take it off him”.
As Australia looked for the four remaining English wickets to win the Test on Sunday, on an nearly illegible banner hanging out of the windows of one of the flats overlooking the ground were scribbled the words, “Calm down, we’ve won”.
Warner responded by tweeting: “Was a great series, well done England!!”
The only way England can retain the Ashes is by winning all three T20 matches which would pull it level at 8-8 and it would then keep the coveted trophy by virtue of being the defending holders.
“It’s been a tough tour for us”. He’s certainly got the respect of everyone in this team, and I think they have got the confidence in him as well. “I think the past three Test matches have not been that case”. However, recent history shows that five-Test series are only ever played between the Big Three of world cricket. Moeen Ali missed the series against New Zealand but has been included in both the squads.
Ali, England’s front-line spinner, was disappointed with his bowling displays against the Australians this summer.
“We were not really able to get going and kept losing wickets at regular intervals (and) 122 was never going to be good enough”, Lanning told Sky Sports.
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As a result of that, Root has been rested from the ODI and T20I series against the touring Aussies while Eoin Morgan continues to lead England in both the limited-overs format of the game.
