Yep, that is precisely what happened at the Melbourne Cricket Ground today. The Three Lions had to face a lot of embarrassment in the hands of the Baggie Greens in the Ashes as the former lost 4-0. The bowlers of the Australian cricket team didn’t give the English batters a moment of piece in the Tests, but they were desecrated today by Jason Roy.

Australia were put to bat first by England and Aaron Finch may have made captain Eoin Morgan regret it initially. The opening batsman scored a wonderful 107 from 119 balls to give his team a good start. He wasn’t well supported by the other top-order batsmen, but the likes of Mitchell Marsh and Marcus Stoinis played some great knocks in the middle order to get Australia’s score over 300.

For the bowlers, every English bowler that got to bowl took a wicket at least, with Liam Plunkett taking the most wickets with 3. However, he gave away 71 runs in his 10 overs. Adil Rashid took two wickets, but gave away 73 runs in his 10 overs.

Meanwhile, the rest of bowlers—Moeen Ali, Mark Wood and Chris Woakes—took a wicket each to cover up Australia at 304 for 8.

In response, the Three Lions openers Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow came to bat with positive intent and raced to 53 runs from just 4.3 overs before the latter lost his wicket to Mitchell Starc. However, Roy wasn’t in the mood to feed the Aussie bowlers. No, sir, not today.

Roy, who had been suffering from erratic form, was at his brilliant best and saw the cricket ball in the shape of a football. He tormented the Aussie bowlers and burned them in his wrathful fire—like time consumes everyone in the end—and smashed his way to a 151-ball 180.

Indeed, he broke a multitude of records with his innings. He became the holder of the highest individual score by an English player in ODIs while also scoring the most runs in a single ODI innings at the MCG. This was also the highest individual score by a visiting batsman in Australia and also the highest score by a player while chasing against Australia

One could have said that he won the game single-handedly for England, but that would be unfair on Joe Root. The Test captain scored 91-not-out to finish the game off with 7 balls to spare and ensured that Roy’s great work didn’t go in vain.

Meanwhile, in the Aussie bowling department, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins took two wickets each, but gave away 71 and 63 runs respectively. Marcus Stoinis took the other wicket, but it was alrady too late by then.

This is the perfect start of the series for England as they look to avenge themselves for the embarrassment that the Aussies inflicted on them in the Ashes series. Jason Roy has found his form and if he can continue that for the rest of the series, it will be very difficult to stop England from getting one over their eternal rivals. 

Final scores:

Australia – 304/8 after 50 overs
Aaron Finch 107(119) | Liam Plunkett 10-0-71-3
Marcus Stoinis 60(40)
England – 308/5 after 48.5 overs
Jason Roy 180(151) | Pat Cummins 10-0-63-2
Joe Root 91(110)