Australia need to work very hard to overcome the fierce passion of Andrew Strauss and his boys' thirst for a white-wash.A week ago, if anyone had predicted that the ODI series between England and Australia would be decided within the first 3 ODIs and that England would be the team that had won, he would have been laughed out of the room. However, it's the English fans (the cricket fans, not the football ones) who are doing all the laughing now.
The victories might not have all been by huge margins, but England has done precisely what Australia had turned into their own speciality - finishing matches, and finding the man for the job no matter what the situation.
England, in fact, have been on an unprecedented roll against the Aussies, getting the better of them in their most recent Twenty20 encounter (the World T20 finals), their most recent Test series (the Ashes 2009) and their most recent ODI series (the present one). While this can be attributed in part to the Australians declining, it is more due to England playing great cricket.
And even though the series is decided, there is going to be absolutely no let-up in intensity from either England or Australia in the final two matches. England will be salivating at the prospect of handing out a 5-0 hiding to Australia, having themselves been on the receiving end of too many hidings to count in the recent and not-so-recent past. Australia, for their part, still remain Australia - and in a land where players take offence at being beaten in a game of tiddly-winks with toddlers, losing one more match to England will be indigestible to them.
Australia need to tighten up their game though, if they want to get onto the score-board against a well-oiled English team. (Even writing this sentence seems strange - almost as if the names of the teams have been reversed by some error!). They did display some encouraging signs with their fightback in the third ODI, turning a walk in the park for England into a desperate scramble for victory, but whereas in the past, an Australian team would have found a pressure point and sealed off all the valves and so choked England, this time, England didn't knuckle under. Thus for the Australians to save any face, they need to lift their game even more than they did in the closing stages of the third ODI, and they need to do it for longer durations during a match.
England, on the other hand, have their basics in place, and the leadership team of Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower seems to have their vision and their plans of execution well in place. In Eoin Morgan and Kevin Pietersen, England have two game-changers in the middle order, and in Paul Collingwood one of the most reliable old hands in the game. Swann, Anderson and Broad have hunted together superbly, while the fielding has been top drawer.
For Australia, the struggles of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey with the bat have hurt them hard, and none of the bowlers apart from Bollinger, and to an extent Steven Smith, have been able to consistently contain England's batsmen.
Ricky Ponting has said his side is playing for pride - and there is certainly lots at stake here. Whether it is enough to overcome the fierce passion of Andrew Strauss and his boys' thirst for a white-wash is what will be seen in the fourth One Day International.
Teams:
England (From): Andrew Strauss(c), Craig Kieswetter(w), Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell, Eoin Morgan, Luke Wright, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom, Michael Yardy, Ajmal Shahzad
Australia (From): Shane Watson, Tim Paine(w), Ricky Ponting(c), Michael Clarke, Cameron White, Michael Hussey, James Hopes, Steven Smith, Doug Bollinger, Ryan Harris, Shaun Marsh, Josh Hazlewood, Clint McKay, Shaun Tait
The match will be webcasted for free at http://isports-tv.com
~ Photo courtesy: Getty Images
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