Australia 259 for 1 (Ponting 111*, Watson 136*) beat England 257 (Bresnan 80, Wright 48, Siddle 3-55) by nine wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
Australia's cricketers proved that their recent 6-1 thrashing of
England was neither an aberration nor entirely irrelevant, as Ricky
Ponting and Shane Watson produced their country's highest partnership
in limited-overs cricket, a majestic alliance of 252 in 242 balls, to
power their side into Monday's final of the Champions Trophy.
Chasing a target of 258 that was swelled only by an improbable
career-best from Tim Bresnan at No. 8, Australia sauntered to a
nine-wicket victory against their favourite ODI opponents with a
massive 49 balls to spare. Ponting chalked up his 28th one-day century,
and his 12,000th run in the format, en route to an unbeaten 111 from
115 balls, while Watson provided the gloss finish with 136 not out from
132 balls, his third and highest hundred in 89 games.
Incredibly there were no Australian players named
in the ODI Team of the Year that was unveiled at the ICC's annual
awards ceremony on Thursday night, but the world's leading 50-over
nation proved once more that they may be a side in transition, but they
are by no means a spent force, as they secured the right to defend the
title they won in India in October 2006. The end, when it came, was
nose-rubbingly humiliating, as the Aussies claimed the batting
Powerplay with 28 runs still required, and duly clobbered 23 of them in
a single over from Paul Collingwood, including three of Watson's seven
sixes, all from exuberant heaves through the leg-side. For a man who
started the tournament with two ducks, it was a spectacular riposte.
England were utterly powerless to stem the tide, and in fact, the only
thing that came close to upstaging Australia's canter to victory was
the swarm of moths that flocked to sample Centurion's floodlights, and
so delayed the start of their run-chase. Andrew Strauss won the toss,
as he always does - this was his ninth in 11 ODIs in the past month,
and his seventh out of eight against the Aussies - but after slashing a
four and a six in his first eight deliveries, he was brilliantly caught
by James Hopes at square leg in the second over of the match, and in so
doing he set an unfortunate precedent for his team-mates.
After 20.2 overs of the match, England's spirited
campaign was in ruins. They had chosen to bat with the same gung-ho
aggression that had carried them to impressive wins against Sri Lanka
and South Africa, but in so doing they shed six wickets for 101, and
were in danger of being skittled with half of their overs remaining.
Owais Shah followed his breathtaking 98 from 89 balls at this same
venue on Sunday with a second-ball duck, and though Paul Collingwood
bristled during a counterattacking 34, he was snaffled one-handed by
the wicketkeeper Tim Paine, who claimed five catches in a hyperactive
performance behind the stumps.
The rest of the specialist batsmen followed
meekly. Joe Denly looked composed before falling in the thirties, as is
his unfortunate habit, while Steven Davies - making his ODI debut after
replacing the ill Matt Prior - lasted a mere four deliveries before
inside-edging Watson onto his off stump. When Eoin Morgan carved at a
cut to end a laboured innings of 9 from 27 balls, normal service was
all set to be resumed, after England's whitewash-averting victory at
Durham a fortnight ago.
But instead, Bresnan and Wright set about
rebuilding from the very foundations of the innings, adding 107 for the
seventh wicket in a performance that both put their colleagues to
shame, and proved the placid nature of the surface. After bedding
themselves in with discipline, Wright signalled the charge in the 35th
over by smacking Nathan Hauritz for two sixes over midwicket, and
though he was caught behind soon afterwards for 48, Bresnan continued
to march onwards and upwards, using a good eye and a heavy bat to
punish any error in line or length.
Bresnan was a late addition to the side after
Stuart Broad failed to recover from a strained left buttock, and he
entered the game with a slap on the wrists from the management after
abusing a fan who had made fun of his weight on the social networking
site, Twitter. With an improbable century on the cards, he was bowled
by Brett Lee during the batting Powerplay, whereupon England's innings
finished as disappointingly as it had begun, with a spate of run-outs
curtailing their innings with 14 balls remaining.
After their insect interlude, Australia suffered
an early setback when Graham Onions extracted Tim Paine in his first
over, but from that moment on, they didn't ever look like being
troubled. Ponting dealt almost exclusively in boundaries in the
formative stage of his innings, with 28 of his first 29 runs coming in
fours, while Watson's only genuine let-off came when Wright strayed out
of position on the long-on boundary, and spilled a catch off Graeme
Swann over the rope for his first six.
Australia's batsmen played formidably, but
England's bowlers were way off the mark, consistently banging the ball
in short in a bid to ruffle a few feathers, but instead offered far too
many scoring opportunities. James Anderson, as ever, was the most
potent attacking option, but even he lost his groove after a hideous
piece of fielding from Morgan, who collected the ball in the covers and
winged a wild shy clean over the keeper's head for four. Ponting, the
beneficiary, followed up with three more boundaries from the next five
balls that Anderson bowled at him.
In the end, there was an inevitability to Australia's destructive
denouement. England's campaign has been one of their most successful
forays into one-day cricket for many a long year, but they still
managed only a 50-50 success rate in their four games, never mind the
humiliating margin of this latest contest. Australia, meanwhile, march
onwards towards another yet slice of silverware. Ponting's emotional
celebrations of his century spoke volumes of his continuing resolve. On
this form, it will not matter who they face in the final.
