Key events
Jos Buttler finishes the series with 150 runs at an average of 75 and a strike rate of 174. Not a bad comeback from a long lay-off. Full list of batters here.
England close on 112
12th over: England 112-2 (Buttler 65, Stokes 17) Finch keeps Maxwell on, doubling down on his audacity. Buttler skies one but gets away with it as it falls to earth in no-man’s-land, halfway to deep midwicket. Stokes, facing the final ball, hits it handsomely, down the ground, and then miscalculates, watching his handiwork rather than running. There’s a good save on the boundary and it’s only a single, with an appeal for a run-out to boot (he was in). “One of the comedy moments,” says Jonny Bairstow on BT. England’s total will be revised upwards, and it’s thought to be heading for 130.
11th over: England 103-2 (Buttler 60, Stokes 13) How do you follow 4-4-4? With 2-2-6! Buttler goes down the ground, out to cover (great stop there by Maxwell, using the water to slide, so basically surfing), and then over deep square. What a player he is. That’s 22 off the over… from Hazlewood. I take it all back.
Fifty to Buttler!
Mid-11th over: England 93-2 (Buttler 50, Stokes 13) Here comes Hazlewood, not the easiest bowler to batter… But Buttler is having a go. He chips the first ball for four, whips the second for four more, gropes outside off to nick the third for another four. That’s his fifty off 35 balls. And it’s 20 off five balls since the resumption.
10th over: England 81-2 (Buttler 38, Stokes 13) Stokes, resuming against Maxwell, hits the first ball for six! With a skimming pull. That’s the first six of the innings, though it may not be the last. Next ball Stokes adds two more, whacked back past the bowler and giving him a sore hand. Game on?
The bowlers are now down to three overs at most, so Cummins is done with a classy 3-0-23-1.
The prediction machine at CricViz is still giving England a 54pc chance of a win. The one inside my head, for what it’s worth, makes it about a quarter of that.
Play will resume at half-past. England’s task is a ludicrous one, but at least they have their World Cup super-over duo at the crease. And it might just get Ben Stokes out of his slump. He can bat as if he’s playing for Durham and he’s just been appointed Test captain.
Welcome to T12!
The game has been abridged again – to 12 overs a side. Which means England have only 14 balls left, and Australia are blazing hot favourites.
Rain, rain comes again
Mid-10th over: England 73-2 (Buttler 38, Stokes 5) Finch decides the time is ripe for spin at both ends, a bold move on a damp evening. But Glenn Maxwell starts respectably enough, conceding four singles, and then the sodding rain returns.
9th over: England 69-2 (Buttler 36, Stokes 3) Stokes gets off the mark second ball with a clip to midwicket off Zampa, then flirts with danger by taking a tight single to short third. The halfway stage has slipped by and Australia are back on top.
8th over: England 63-2 (Buttler 33, Stokes 0) That was a fine over from Cummins: he had just smothered Malan with a couple of dots. Five from it, a big wicket, and now the Aussies have Ben Stokes to bowl at, in no sort of form – except as a fielder.
Wicket! Malan c March b Cummins 23 (England 63-2)
A slower ball, a skyscraper of a top edge, and a good catch by Mitch Marsh, going down on one knee at cover.
Fifty partnership!
7th over: England 58-1 (Buttler 32, Malan 19) Buttler cuts the first ball for four, threading it between the two backward points. That should get it nice and wet. With a few ones and twos, the batters make 11 off the over and bring up the fifty partnership off 35 balls. It’s been calm but also rapid enough.
They’re out there and Adam Zampa has four balls left in his over.
Six overs have been shorn from the match, so this is now a T17 international. That should work in Australia’s favour, as they will know from the first ball that they only have 17 overs. That said, England’s players may be slightly more accustomed to a hundred-ball thrash. Play should resume in a few minutes.
Hussey is now talking about Reece Topley, who is “a great character”, apparently. “Yesterday he went out to the national art gallery and had a look around. We had a few of the guys go to the war memorial. They’re quite cultured, some of these English guys.”
Mike Hussey is being interviewed. He’s gone from a powerhouse in the Australian middle order to a batting coach for England. They even persuaded him to present Dawid Malan with the commemorative cap to mark his 50th T20 international. “He’s got a great understanding of his own game,” Hussey says. Takes one to know one.
Things are looking up. The umpires are out to have a look, wearing bright pink rain-jackets.
It’s now pouring. Aussie weather, eh.
Rain stops play!
Two balls of spin from Adam Zampa, two more runs to Buttler, and then the rain comes and the umps take the players off. This brings a magnificent weather forecast from our friends at Cricinfo. “Radar suggests a passing shower,” they reckon, “but may get reasonably heavy.”
6th over: England 47-1 (Buttler 23, Malan 17) Cummins, replacing Hazlewood, starts with a length ball, so Buttler plays that chip again – four more. “Best shot of the game so far,” says another of those Aussie commentators. Buttler adds a pull for two and the powerplay ends with honours about even – Australia asserting themselves early on, England rebuilding smoothly.
5th over: England 38-1 (Buttler 15, Malan 16) Starc returns, to be swatted for four past cover by Buttler, before keeping Malan tied down. A short ball brings a miscued pull, but it plops safely over mid-on. The crowd are wearing puffy jackets and bobble hats, but the evening sky is gorgeous – solid midnight blue on one camera, tinged with lilac on another.
4th over: England 30-1 (Buttler 10, Malan 14) England take a liberty against Hazlewood for the first time, as Buttler chips over cover for four. Malan pulls again and gets hold of it this time – the firm smack of a back-foot player in top form.
“This game is very far indeed from being a ‘dead rubber’,” says Andrew Benton. “Whoever wins will be setting their intent for the World Cup. England must show they can build further on success, Australia that they can fight back to victory. Whoever loses had better just go home before the Cup starts…” So if England win this series 2-1, they should go home? The Benton bar is a high one.
3rd over: England 18-1 (Buttler 4, Malan 9) Starc gives way to Pat Cummins, who has not one slip but two. Malan sees a gap on the leg side, flicks off his pads and gets the first four from the bat. And another, with a pull, not quite middled but effective. “Class player,” says one of the Aussie commentators. “I’m surprised he’s not in the Test team.” The reason for that is that he’s better in Australia than anywhere else.
2nd over: England 9-1 (Buttler 3, Malan 1) Dawid Malan, so commanding the other night, is off the mark first ball, getting across to off stump and pushing past the bowler for a single. Buttler sees that and thinks he’ll do the same. That’s an immaculate start from Hazelwood, who found some lift as well as line’n’length to see off Hales.
Wicket! Hales c Finch b Hazelwood 0 (England 7-1)
First blood! And it’s a textbook Test-match wicket – good length, tight line, tentative poke, simple catch at slip.
1st over: England 7-0 (Buttler 2, Hales 0) Starc swings the first ball – down the leg side, so England get going with a wide. Jos Buttler clips the next one for two, and soon another swinger goes for four leg-byes. Australia tend to start T20s by treating them as Test matches, which plays more to Extras’ strengths than Buttler’s.
The players are out there and Mitchell Starc has the ball in his left hand.
England XI: Wood and Woakes return
With the Dettol Trophy in the bag, Jos Buttler could be giving all the understudies a go, but he prefers just to switch a couple of his seamers – the only department in which England have made changes in this series. Mark Wood returns, which should make the game even better to watch, and so does Chris Woakes, which should add one stylish six to England’s total. Sam Curran, the man of the series so far, drops out, along with Chris Jordan, who is still feeling his way back from the treatment table. “We need to keep up the intensity,” says Buttler in that deceptively gentle tone of his.
England 1 Jos Buttler (capt, wkt), 2 Alex Hales, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Moeen Ali, 7 David Willey, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Mark Wood, 11 Reece Topley.
Australia XI: Steve Smith is back
David Warner takes a breather after a touch of whiplash on the rope the other night. His place goes to quite a promising reserve: Steve Smith. Finch says Glenn Maxwell will move up to open with him. Asked why he’s opted to bowl again, he gives a good crisp answer. “We’ve got to get better at chasing.”
Australia 1 Aaron Finch (capt), 2 Glenn Maxwell, 3 Mitch Marsh, 4 Steve Smith, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Tim David, 7 Matthew Wade (wkt), 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Adam Zampa, 11 Josh Hazlewood.
Toss: Australia win and bowl first
The toss hasn’t been shown on the telly, but it appears to have taken place – and been conducted by Punxsutawney Phil. Aaron Finch won it yet again and opted to bowl yet again. The man is hell-bent on completing another eight-run defeat.
Preamble
Morning everyone and welcome to a collector’s item. Yes, it’s a dead rubber, in Australia, because the Poms have already wrapped up the series. It could easily have gone the other way, after two close-run things, but … look, it didn’t.
So Jos Buttler’s new-look England are 2-0 up with one to play. After winning the Dettol Trophy, they’re eyeing a particularly clean sweep. The only worry for their supporters is that the Australians will be hell-bent on revenge when the two sides meet again in the World Cup, a fortnight from today.
Actually, that’s not the only worry. There’s the faint fretful feeling that Mark Wood may get injured again, that Adil Rashid could remain strangely out of sorts, that Ben Stokes may carry on contributing less with the bat than with his boundary acrobatics. The true sports lover knows how to whistle up a cloud on the sunniest day. But if you’re an England fan, perhaps you can at least try to inhale the sweet smell of success.
And if you’re an Aussie supporter, well, your boys only lost by eight runs each time, and in the first game that was despite resting all their big-gun bowlers. The revenge mission could well begin right here. The dish might not be cold enough, but the air looks as if it will be: the forecast for Canberra says 12-13 degrees, sunny spells and showers. Is it London in disguise?
All being well, play starts at 7.10pm local time, which is 9.10am in the UK. I’ll be back with the toss and teams about 25 minutes before that.
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