England captain Harry Brook has dragged his side back into the one-day international series against Australia, his brilliant maiden ODI hundred under pressure steering the hosts to a rain-affected triumph at Chester-le-Street.
The visitors, looking for the victory to clinch the five-match series, managed to beat the expected bad weather too as Brook ensured they were 46 runs ahead on the DLS calculations when the rain hit at the Riverside Ground on Tuesday.
Australia badly missed their star spinner Adam Zampa as the world champions’ ODI win streak was ended at 14 matches, with England now back in business at 2-1 down and feeling confident for the two remaining matches at Lord’s on Friday and Bristol on Sunday.
The hosts will be buoyed by the emphatic way Brook, their stand-in ODI skipper while Jos Buttler is out injured, made the chase of their seemingly formidable 7-304 on a difficult, damp day in County Durham look so elementary.
Without the mid-innings control and stand-breaking potential of Zampa, the gifted 25-year-old Yorkshireman Brook, aided by an excellent 84 off 82 balls from Will Jacks and a blistering late cameo from Liam Livingstone (33 not out off 20), steered England to 4-254.
They were odds on to cruise home with just 51 needed off 74 balls when the rains came, but the weather couldn’t disguise the clinical nature of England’s chase, with Brook and Jacks sharing a third-wicket partnership of 156 before the skipper went on to make a brilliant 110 not out off 94 balls.
Earlier, after Australia captain Mitch Marsh lost his third straight toss and was sent into bat under heavy skies and on a damp outfield, Australia thrived on two very contrasting half-centuries from the in-form Alex Carey and battling Steve Smith.
Carey followed his brilliant late, lone hand as player of the match in the win at Headingley on Saturday with a superb unbeaten 77 off 65 balls.
The wicketkeeper was helped in a fine late assault on the England seamers by the impressive Aaron Hardie, who hammered 44 off 26 balls before Carey left him high and dry in a final-over run-out.
Smith’s 34th ODI fifty proved much more of a struggle, with the master batter out of sorts for much of his innings before he finally lost another engrossing duel with Jofra Archer and was dismissed for 60 off 82 balls.
Smith looked as if he might finally have been rediscovering his best when he pulled Archer with sweet timing in front of square only for Brydon Carse to pull off a spectacular catch at full stretch on the boundary.
There were also valuable contributions from Cameron Green (42 off 49) and Glenn Maxwell, who clouted 30 off 25 balls.
Marsh could feel delighted at how his side developed fairly brisk partnerships throughout the order, finally blasting 55 off the last four overs to get to a total that was 27 runs higher than the average first-innings score at the Riverside.
The captain himself had begun with a battling 24, even though he had to wear a couple of body blows from Archer in his first over and then another painful hit to the chest by Carse en route.
Smith’s battle with his old tormentor Archer was also a treat, with the ever-animated batter at one point falling in undignified fashion on his backside trying to scoop the menacing England strike bowler, before also later copping a blow to the shoulder from a short one.
When England batted, Mitchell Starc (2-63) snaffled two wickets in the first two overs, as he got Phil Salt picked up with a mistimed flick to Matt Short at midwicket before Ben Duckett edged him to Maxwell at deep gully.
But then England’s batting wasn’t challenged much against some ordinary bowling, only Green (2-45) picking up Jacks and Jamie Smith with short-ball tactics.
AAP
