Aaron Finch struck his second 50-over ton as Australia maintained their dominance over England with a six-wicket victory in their first one-day international yesterday.
Finch (121) and fellow opener David Warner (65) dazzled, while captain Michael Clarke contributed 43 brisk runs as the hosts eased to a victory target of 270 with 4.2 overs to spare in Melbourne, Australia.
Earlier, half-centuries from Gary Ballance (79) and Eoin Morgan (50) helped England put behind a wobbly start and post 269 for seven wickets after captain Alastair Cook opted to bat first.
The 163-run stand between Finch and Warner in 28 overs laid the foundation for Australia’s comprehensive win, which prolonged England’s misery Down Under after their Test series whitewash.
Australia’s openers enjoyed their share of luck, with Finch dropped by Ballance on eight and Warner called back from the boundary line on 22 after replays could not establish conclusively if Jos Buttler had a clean catch behind the stumps.
Warner eventually holed out in the deep off Joe Root to depart after a 72-ball knock that included five boundaries and a six off Chris Jordan.
Jordan dismissed Shane Watson for a two-ball duck in the next over, but Clarke and Finch scored freely to kill the contest.
Balance eventually caught Finch in the 40th over off Ben Stokes, putting an end to his 128-ball blitz.
England suffered an early blow when Cook edged the fourth ball of the day to perish caught behind for four.
Clint McKay (3-44) claimed his second victim in Root (three) to reduce the tourists to 22 for two, before Ian Bell and Ballance steadied the ship.
Morgan joined Ballance in the middle for England’s most productive partnership, adding 83 runs from 14.1 overs.
Maxwell dismissed Morgan for 50 off 47 balls, as Ballance fell in the 46th over, having justified his call-up with his maiden ODI fifty.
When Paddy Dwyer arrived in China in 1976, crowds jostled to catch a glimpse of him and his companions — the first Western soccer team to play in the country. China was emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and on the brink of market reforms that would take the country from economic stagnation to explosive growth. “All we could see was lines of people running beside our bus, trying to look in the windows, to see their first visual of a white person,” he said. “It was all bicycles,” he said. “There were very few cars to be seen.” Dwyer,
A new NZ$683 million (US$404 million) stadium that was a symbol of Christchurch’s struggle to rebuild after a deadly earthquake struck the New Zealand city is to host its first match tomorrow in front of a sellout crowd. A magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed 185 people in February 2011 and toppled or damaged buildings, including the city’s old Lancaster Park. The stadium, which hosted international rugby and cricket, and was home to the Canterbury Crusaders, was badly damaged and never reopened. It was bulldozed in 2019 and turned into sports fields, leaving the Crusaders without a permanent home. Government funding for a new stadium was
Some of Clearlake Capital Group’s largest investors are growing increasingly concerned about how much time the company’s co-founders are spending on sports investments as they have struggled to complete the fundraising for the private equity firm’s latest flagship fund. One of Clearlake’s co-founders, Behdad Eghbali, has been spending what some investors described as a disproportionate amount of time on the firm’s investment in Chelsea Football Club in recent months. Now, co-founder Jose E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, are nearing a record US$3.9 billion deal to acquire the San Diego Padres. That personal investment by Feliciano has set off the latest
The Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburg Penguins on Wednesday put a squeeze on the penalty box in Game 3 of their NHL playoff series — with 11 players cramped inside their designated punishment areas. Each could have snapped a team photo after a melee broke out in the second period of the Flyers’ 5-2 win over the Penguins in their Eastern Conference first-round series. “It was a party in there,” penalized Flyers defenseman Nick Seeler said. The celebration extended into the joyous locker room after the Flyers took a 3-0 series lead. Penguins forward Bryan Rust slammed Travis Konecny to the ice behind the
RSS