England retained their dominance over Australia as they sealed another victory against the Kangaroos in the second ODI on Saturday. They are now leading the five-match series 2-0.

Winning the toss at Cardiff, Australia opted to bowl first. England played without their regular captain, Eoin Morgan, as he was ruled out of the game after a back spasm. Sam Billings replaced Morgan and Jos Buttler captained the England team.

A century from opener Jason Roy followed by another magnificent 91-run innings from Buttler saw England pose a daunting total of 342 runs for eight wickets.

Roy notched up his fifth ODI ton and made 120 runs before returning to the pavilion. Buttler played a quick-fire innings facing 70 deliveries and remained not out.

Jhye Richardson, who replaced an injured Billy Stanlake, scalped two wickets for the Aussie team. Andrew Tye and Kane Richardson also took as many scalps while Marcus Stoinis got one wicket to his name.

In reply, the Aussie batsmen couldn’t stand firm against the bowling attack of the no. 1 ranked ODI team and eventually lost the game by 38 runs.

The only commendable innings from the Australian camp came from Shaun Marsh’s bat, who clubbed 131 runs before Liam Plunkett bowled him out. Ashton Agar also made 46 runs but all of their efforts faded away as Australia were all out on 304 runs with 17 balls to spare.

Plunkett was the pick of the England bowlers as he bagged a four-fer. Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali again accounted for half of the Australian wickets while Mark Wood also got a wicket to his name.

England had handed a 4-1 defeat to Australia in an ODI series earlier this year. The Aussies will have to win all the next three matches if they want to take revenge for that defeat.

Australia have lost thirteen of the last fifteen ODIs they have played since January last year. Their batting was below par in the first ODI and this time, it was the bowling unit that leaked too many runs and made the job tough for the hapless side. They will now have to strike all the right notes if they want to achieve something positive with the reformed team.

 

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