Andrew Strauss rues missed opportunities as Australia coast to 2-0 lead in ODI series
England captain Andrew Strauss is a disappointed man after his team relinquished a strong position to lose the second ODI against Australia at Hobart. The tourists were on top twice in Australia’s innings
before letting them off the hook to lose the match rather embarrassingly at the end. The hosts batted first and were left tottering at 33/4 after an inspired opening spell by Ajmal Shehzad. Later in the innings, the Aussies were reeling at 142/8 before a splendid
rearguard action by centurion Shaun Marsh and seamer Doug Bollinger, who scored 30 runs.
After being set 231 to win, the tourists were blown away by Bollinger who capped off a remarkable match with a 4-wicket haul. At the post-match press conference, Strauss stated that playing only three seamers
cost his side the match.
"In hindsight we should probably have got the fourth seamer in our side, that was a mistake," Strauss said. "We probably didn't think it was going to be quite as slow and stodgy as it was. A [Luke] Wright
or a [Chris] Woakes would have been a good addition to side, but things are always clearer at the end of the game than the start.
"That's the problem with only three seamers, we were probably a little light of a fourth seamer to bowl at that stage. The biggest regret is that Doug Bollinger got 30 and put on all those runs with Marsh."
Strauss was also critical of the batting performance. The tourists were never in the hunt after losing early wickets of Matt Prior, Strauss and Kevin Pietersen, and the big hitting KP was dismissed on the
first ball by Bollinger after he had accounted for Strauss on the previous one.
Strauss observed that a mediocre total like the one they were set required one batsman to play a major innings and score around 80 runs. The unfortunate aspect of the English performance was that none of
the batsmen registered a fifty in the innings; in fact, the top score was 32 scored by Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott.
"It was a very poor day, there's no doubt about it," he said. "When you are chasing that score you need one guy to get 80-odd and none of us did that. There we lots of 20s and 30s, too many early wickets
and ultimately it wasn't good.
"A lot of us made poor decisions today. There were quite a few soft dismissals," Strauss added. "The one thing I'd say is that we aren't in the business of handing out huge recriminations to our batsmen.
We want to see them play positively, that's the most important thing for us”.
The two teams have five more matches to play in the series, which is the last opportunity for them to fine-tune the squads for the World Cup that starts next month. England and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 are drawn in separate
pools for the event with England playing its matches in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758.
The Australians have now taken a 2-0 lead in the series. The wins in Melbourne and Hobart mean that they have now won 4 matches on the trot against their archrivals in the ODI format.
England has to hit back hard if they are to keep alive their hopes of keeping an unblemished record in what has been one of their greatest tours of Australia in the last 100 years.
The third ODI of the series will be staged at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Sunday.
Tags: