With the Test and the ODI series lost, England would be looking to take the T20Is into the final game but to do that they will need to beat Australia in the second T20I in Melbourne on Friday. Follow the action live from 7.35 pm AEDT.
It wasn’t a particularly bright start from England with the ball on what was an easy pitch to bat on in Hobart.
And once Cameron White and Aaron Finch had gotten their side off to a sizzler, it was only going to be a matter of how much more than 200 they would be scoring rather than whether they would achieve that landmark.
Don’t let the narrow, 13-run margin fool you into believing the game was close either.
Never during their chase did England look to be in control and the wickets of Luke Wright and Alex Hales, and Jos Buttler and Joe Root in the same over, hammered one nail after another into their coffin.
It was no surprise that England had decided to rest Ben Stokes and Chris Jordan, with both players having shouldered their fair share of workload during the one-day internationals.
And it wouldn’t be too surprising if at least one of them made a comeback into the playing 11 for this one, in a bid to control the escalating run-rate at the start of the innings.
What the English bowlers would also hope for is the MCG to push the boundaries back, in order to allow them to maintain more pressure on the big-hitting likes of Finch and Glenn Maxwell. Both love to hit the ball in the air and shorter boundaries will only allow them to mount on the six-count.
Much like what Australia did in the opener, England need at least one of their top three to bat the distance. Alex Hales has shown in the past he can do that but his style during the Big Bash League before this series was more on the lines of trying to smack a quick-fire 20 or 30 runs before getting out.
It’s a tactic that may need a bit of tweaking.
And if that cannot happen, Michael Lumb could need to look to carry his bat through the innings with the likes of Hales, Luke Wright and even Joe Root going hammer and tongs – especially if the track allows that.
Australia will need to make a change or two of their own.
Moises Henriques has been ruled out of the rest of the series because of his call-up to the Test team and his replacement in the squad is Brad Hodge – making a comeback into the team for the first time since 2008.
Whether or not Hodge makes it to the playing 11 remains to be seen with another all-rounder Ben Cutting seemingly a more like-for-like replacement for Henriques.
The other issue that Australia faced was with the number of runs that Josh Hazlewood gave away in that first game, especially being a frontline pace bowler.
With Mitchell Starc fit and waiting in the wings, it may not be such a bad idea to test him out for a couple of games in place of Henriques – thereby achieving the twin objective of strengthening the bowling attack and reducing the pressure on Hazlewood.
Expecting England to fight back in this one.
Join me for this second T20I of the three-match series on Friday and you can follow the live score of this game from 7.35 pm AEDT and post your comments below.
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