Champions Trophy 2017 | England end Australia’s campaign, Bangladesh through to semis
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Ben Stokes (102*) and Eoin Morgan (87) helped England secure a comfortable 40-run win (DLS) against Australia who could only manage 277 runs in their allotted 50 overs. The result means that Bangladesh have now qualified for the semi-final of the Champions Trophy for the first time in their history.
Brief Scores: Australia 277/9 (Travis Head 71, Aaron Finch 68; Mark Wood 4/33, Adil Rashid 4/41) lost to England 240/4 (Ben Stokes 102*, Eoin Morgan 87; Josh Hazlewood 2/50, Mitchell Starc 1/52) by 40 runs (DLS).
Having already qualified for the semi-finals, England won the toss and invited Australia to bat first. Australia, on the other hand, needed to register a win in order to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition. In the all-important game, both Australia and England decided to play with an unchanged team.
Smith, Finch provide Australia a fighting start
Jake Ball started the game with a maiden over for England but in his next over Aaron Finch opened his shoulders and smashed the Englishman for two boundaries. Finch and his opening pair David Warner were slow off the blocks and when they tried to up the run rate, Warner ended up gifting his wicket away. At the end of the first powerplay, Australia found themselves at a competitive score of 56/1. Even though Finch hit Plunket for two boundaries in the 11th over, the pacer, along with Stokes, conceded only 9 runs in the next four overs. After realizing that the run-rate had dipped to around 5, Finch targeted Stokes and managed to get 14 runs in the over and in the next one, Finch completed his 16th ODI half century. Stokes got the important wicket of dangerous Finch. At the halfway point of the innings, Australia had managed to reach a decent score of 147 for the loss of 2 wickets.
Wood and Rashid give control to England
It was Henriques who was the next to take the long walk back to the dressing room after being dismissed by Adil Rashid. Over the next five overs, Australia could only manage 18 runs courtesy of some tight bowling by England. Mark Wood returned to the attack and got Smith’s wicket on the first ball of his over as England gained the upper hand in the match. Glenn Maxwell and Travis Head’s 58-run partnership came to an abrupt end in the 43rd over when Jason Roy took a blinder at deep mid-wicket. In the next over, Rashid Ali got rid of both Matthew Wade and Mitchell Starc to put Australia in all sorts of trouble. Australia still managed to finish their innings on a high scoring 28 runs in the last five overs to reach a competitive total of 277/9.
Morgan and Stokes rescue England after early collapse
Needing to chase at just 5.54 runs an over, England got off to a disastrous start with Jason Roy (4), Alex Hales (0), and Joe Root (15) being dismissed before the sixth over. But in keeping with the trend of their tournament, Australia
Stokes and Morgan help England register third win in a row
With both batsmen timing the ball perfectly, they started attacking the Aussies, dispatching the ball to every corner of the ground. Requiring to score at 5.06 runs per over, England continued to score at a brisk pace and scored 37 runs in the next five overs before adding another 24 in the next five. At the end of the 30th over the hosts had managed to reach 187/3 which meant that they needed just 91 runs in the next 120 balls to maintain their 100% winning ratio. The 159-run partnership was finally ended when Morgan was run-out by Zampa in the 32 over for 87. The wicket, however, didn’t affect Stokes and he continued the onslaught and brought up his century on the first ball of the 41st over. However, a ball later the covers were called on again and after a delay of almost an hour the game was called off and England secured a 40 run victory via the DLS method. The hosts will be joined by Bangladesh in the semi-finals after the Asians finished a point ahead of Australia in the standings.
