12 Jun 2019
After a forgettable Ashes series for England, the start of the one-day series on Sunday provides an opportunity to salvage some pride for the touring side.
Joe Root is expected to be available for selection after recovering from the gastroenteritis which struck him down in the fifth and final Test in Sydney.
Despite going through a gruelling schedule as Test captain, Root is keen to play lots of limited overs cricket in preparation for next year’ss World Cup in England. The Yorkshireman hands over the captaincy duties to Eoin Morgan, however, who arrives in Melbourne fresh off his side’ss five-wicket victory against Cricket Australia XI.
Morgan led from the front in his 81 not out, and there were more encouraging signs for England ahead of the upcoming one-day schedule. This is the first of five one-day internationals against Australia, followed by three Twenty20 fixtures against the Aussies and New Zealand.
England won this week’ss warm-up game with 55 balls left to play, and Morgan was one of five players to score 20 or more runs. Perhaps most encouraging, though, was Moeen Ali’ss success with the ball. The spinner’ss struggles in the Test series were well documented, so his very economical return of 2-28 off his 10 overs will have done Ali’ss confidence the world of good.
Captain Morgan’ss knock sets him up nicely ahead of Sunday’ss series opener, and the Middlesex batsman looks good value to be England’s top run scorer at 9/2. Roy, Bairstow, Hales and Buttler all made good starts in the warm-up game, so coach Trevor Bayliss will be hopeful of a strong batting performance this weekend.
Someone perhaps flying under the radar coming into this game is Sam Billings, who smashed an unbeaten 61 off 31 in what was a hugely impressive knock for the Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League on Monday. He also finished England’ss warm-up game 15 not out, so arrives in Melbourne in somewhat of a purple patch. Billings is definitely worth a punt at 12/1 to be England’ss top run scorer in the first ODI.
Australia have called up Cameron White to replace the injured Chris Lynn. White arrives in the Australian camp off the back of a strong spell with Melbourne Renegades. He has not been dismissed in his last two outings, scoring 68* and 35*. Whilst it was somewhat of a surprise recall for the 34-year-old, who has not played for his country in nearly three years, he is playing well enough to be Australia’s top run scorer on Sunday at 4/1.
Whatever happens, we can expect a much closer contest than the Test series just gone. England will be determined to get back to winning ways ahead of a home World Cup next year.
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