England win tour match against Prime Minister’s XI
England won the rain-interrupted match against the Prime Minister’s XI by seven wickets at Canberra on Monday.
The home team batted first after winning the toss but lost the match after a disappointing bowling performance.
The start of the match was delayed due to rain and the match was initially reduced to 44 overs per innings. However, the rain continued to interrupt the match and the match was eventually reduced to 35 overs.
The home team amassed a good total after their captain Tim Paine gave a solid start to the innings with his fifty. Paine managed an opening partnership of 75 runs with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Usman-Khawaja-c2729 before Khawaja got out for 22 runs.
The Prime Minister’s XI kept on losing their wickets at regular intervals but still managed to score more than 250 in their allotted 43 overs. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Daniel-Christian-c1308 top scored with 53 whereas Paine scored 50 runs.
A cameo of 26 runs from 18 balls from returning pace-man Brett Lee towards the end of the innings proved to be handy for the team in reaching 254.
The English bowlers were quite expensive. However, left-arm spinner Michael Yardy was the best amongst all bowlers. He took three wickets and did not give away too many runs. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ajmal-Shahzad-c42489 also supported him by taking three wickets but he gave away plenty
of runs in his allotted nine overs.
The innings started positively for England with Steve Davies and Ian Bell sharing an 82-run opening stand for the team. Davies was dismissed for 24 off the bowling of Xavier Doherty.
After the first wicket, the match was yet again interrupted by rain and the overs were reduced to 35 after play resumed. The target was revised to 223 with Bell and Jonathan Trott at the crease.
Both the batsmen took the score to 180 before Trott got out for 48 runs. He was just two runs short of his half-century and a century stand with Bell. Kevin Pietersen was the other batsman to be dismissed just when the visitors were four runs away from a
convincing victory.
Pietersen became the first and only victim of Lee in the match. The highlight of the English innings was the unbeaten century of Bell. He scored 124 runs off 102 balls to guide his team to victory.
Doherty took two wickets for his team whereas http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Lee-c72382 grabbed one wicket. The bowling was unimpressive which led to an easy win for the visitors.
Ian Bell was named man of the match for his exceptional performance with the bat.
Tags: