England vs Australia 2020: Jos Buttler Stars in England’s Win
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|| Desk Report ||
England’s wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler has scored an unbeaten 77 and helped England beat Australia by six wickets in the second Twenty20 international at Southampton on Sunday. With this, they won the series as well.
Chase down a target of 158, England finished the game with seven balls to spare. Adam Zampa came to bowl the penultimate over where Moeen Ali hit a six and a four off consecutive deliveries from the leg-spinner. And, Buttler finished the game with a maximum.
While chasing the total, Jonny Bairstow hit Mitchell Starc for two boundaries before getting dismissed to him. After his dismissal, Dawid Malan joined Buttler and steadied the ship with a partnership of 87 runs.
However, Tom Banton and Eoin Morgan failed to score big as they scored only 2 and 7 respectively. In the later part, Moeen Ali joined Buttler in the middle and scored 13 off 6 with a four and a six. Meanwhile, Buttler’s unbeaten 77 came off 54 balls which also included eight fours and two sixes as well.
Having won the toss, Australia put up a modest total of 157-7 where David Warner got out on a duck off Jofra Archer and Australia started struggling at 89 for 5 within 13 overs. While Finch scored 40 off 33 with 4 fours and 2 sixes, Stoinis scored a quickfire 35 off 26, including 2 fours and as many sixes.
However, a late blitz from Glenn Maxwell (26), Ashton Agar (23) and Pat Cummins (13) took them to a stable total after their allotted 20 overs.
Meanwhile, the final match of the series will be played at Southampton on Tuesday.
After the convincing win, Eoin Morgan said, “Can't really fault many facets of the game today. We stood up in the first six overs and made inroads into their top order. That made life easier, bowling well and then finishing well as well. The wicket was a bit soft on the top to start with which is why we wanted to bowl first. Jofra set the tone in the first over. I thought if we played with a bit of smartness in the first six overs with the bat we could chase it down. Australia bowled and fielded well. We'll continue to look at options with the opening position; it would be a disservice to the other players. We'll see how my finger is over the next few days. We'll look to play our best XI over the next game as well.”
Meanwhile, Jos Buttler – who won the Player of the Match award – was happy to score his best T20 scores as well.
“At the top of the order is clearly the best place to bat in T20s. The wicket got easier as well as the match went on. You look at the way Jofra bowled his first over, it was going to be tough against pace. We got through the first two-three overs and got a partnership that set us up for the rest of the chase. Credit to Moeen, he came out and took on the spin and when he got those two boundaries, he took the pressure off. Very keen to stay till the end after what happened to Australia in the last game. It wasn't going to be easy for the new man coming in and that's why I wanted to keep the responsibility of finishing off the game with me,” he said.
