The ICC Men’s ODI World Cup 2023 has been a disaster for the defending champions, England. But England’s start in the World Cup was different. Losing their opening game against New Zealand, England made a fantastic comeback in the following match against Bangladesh. They defeated Bangladesh by a massive 137 runs.
Unfortunately, the Three Lions failed to continue the winning run. Their five-game losing streak started with a sudden defeat against Afghanistan. After that game, they never fought back in the World Cup. Today, they lost their fifth consecutive match as Australia registered a victory by 33 runs over the Three Lions.
While England lost their fifth match in a row, Australia secured their fifth successive victory in this tournament. After losing the first two games, Australia made a U-turn and sealed five victories in a row.
Australia VS England
England’s semifinal hope is already over, but Australia needed the win to secure their place in the top four. However, England’s skipper Jos Buttler decided to bowl first after winning the toss. So, Travis Head and David Warner stepped in to start the batting innings of Australia. But they failed to get a good start as they had against New Zealand.
Australia were two men down as Travis Head and David Warner lost their wickets within six overs. However, Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne made a partnership of 75 runs to handle the initial disaster. They both were looking good, but Adil Rashid broke their partnership by taking the wicket of Smith, who scored 44 off 52.
Anyway, Marnus Labuschagne didn’t miss the half-century and scored a crucial 71 runs before losing the wicket to Mark Wood. Cameroon Green contributed 47 and Marcus Stoinis added 35 at the lower order, which helped Australia to post a total of 286 runs.
Chasing the target, England had a nightmare. Mitchel Starc picked up the wicket of Jonny Bairstow in the very first ball of the innings. The pacer got his second wicket in the 5th over as he got Joe Root this time.
After that, David Malan tried hard to handle the situation with Ben Stokes. Relying on their bats, it seemed England could chase the target. But Pat Cummins broke their partnership by taking the wicket of David Malan in the 22.3 over. Malan scored 50 off 64 before leaving the crease.
After a while, Adam Zampa picked up Ben Stokes, who scored the highest 64 runs, and Australia took control of the match. Although Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes scored 42 and 32 runs respectively, those were not enough to chase the target. In the end, England became all-out in just 253 runs, resulting in Australia winning the match by 33 runs.
