England’s stand-in skipper Jos Buttler insisted the team still needs to improve after the hard-fought 38-run win over Australia in the second One-Day International on Saturday.
The hosts saw off a fighting fifty from Shaun Marsh to go 2-0 up in the five match series. Despite losing skipper Eoin Morgan due to an injury just 20 minutes before the game began , England were able to put in an assured batting performance. Jason Roy scored 120 while Buttler smashed 91 not out as England scored 342 for 8 – their highest one-day score against Australia.
However, England did not find it easy to defend the total. Shaun Marsh scored 131 to keep Australia in the hunt till the very end but lack of support from the other end did not help his cause. The reigning world champions were eventually bowled out for 304.
“I think we’ve still got areas we can improve on to polish up and make us more rounded performers,” Buttler said. “As we always do we’re looking to strive to get better. We actually got into a position where we probably could have got a few more, and I thought Australia bowled pretty well at the end.
“[Roy] played very well from ball one today. It was fantastic to watch, I thought he paced it very well. But a fantastic innings from him and great to see,” he added.
Australia looked pretty much out of contest after being reduced to 164 for 5. However, Marsh and Ashton Agar had some other ideas. The duo put up a brilliant fight wicket to keep up Australia’s fight amid a top-order failure. They added 96 runs for the sixth wicket before Adil Rashid sent back Agar. Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali then managed to take their team home by sharing nine wickets between them.
“Wickets for those guys was crucial at those times. They’ve been two great wicket-takers for us over the past two years. Adil, I thought he took the pressure of bowling at the end with batters coming after him really well, so that’s really encouraging signs for him, and Liam continues to be one of our best strike-bowlers,” Buttler noted.
“They were playing very well. As you see in cricket all around the world 10 an over is very achievable, especially when you have a guy playing as well as Shaun Marsh was. We had to fight hard and keep fighting but 40 runs is a good victory margin in the end,” he added.
