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Australia beat England by 8 wickets in the 5th ODI at Old Trafford, reaching the target with 26 overs left to play. This victory of huge margin concludes and sums up what has been a very topsy turvy Australian tour, which has consistently seen big victories by both sides over each other.
England got off to the most horrible start possible in the all-important tie, being reduced to 22/3 by 7 overs. To make matters worse, captain Eoin Morgan, who has been in sparkling form recently, was forced to go off the field after being hit on the head by a Mitchell Starc bouncer.
The home team never recovered from the twin blows of early wickets and losing their in-form captain, and their innings only went downhill from there on. Ben Stokes (42 off 51) was the only batsman to provide any resistance to the Aussies, and for a while seemed to find an able partner in No.9 Adil Rashid – before being himself dismissed by Mitchell Marsh.
Rashid was the last man standing with a well-made 45-ball 35* when the England innings folded for 138 in 33 overs – the last of the many batting collapses seen on this tour.
James Taylor led England in the second innings in the absence of Eoin Morgan, and they would have been hoping for a turnaround in the match as David Willey dismissed Joe Burns in the 3rd over, leaving Australia reeling at 2/1.
After the teams emerged from the lunch break with the Australian score being 38/2 after 10 overs, George Bailey (41* off 45) and Aaron Finch (70* off 64) got on with their scoring rates, taking their team across the target in only 24.2 overs.
Mitchell Marsh was named both the Man of the Match and the Man of the Series for his all-round performance.
The ODI series has thus been decided in Australia’s favour 3-2, England having won the Ashes Test series 3-2 earlier.
Australia stay at number one in the ICC ODI rankings with 127 points, 12 ahead of 2nd placed India. England stay 6th with 100.
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