England set new ODI batting bar: Smith

MELBOURNE: Three years ago, England looked to the World Cup finallists Australia and New Zealand for the combination of power and freedom that would take them out of the One-day International (ODI) doldrums.

Now Australia’s captain Steven Smith admitted that his side must take heed of the unbridled fury exhibited by Eoin Morgan’s side to return to the top of the 50-over game.Jason Roy’s record England score made the headlines on Sunday night at the MCG, but it was emblematic of a wider approach where most of the top-order batsmen have the licence to attack. The recall of Alex Hales slid Joe Root down to No. 4, if anything a better post from which to act as England’s rudder while other batsmen put three sheets to the wind.

Smith, who has seen Australia slip away from the best of the world’s ODI practitioners over the past year amid plenty of changes to the line-up, said that England’s approach needed to be considered by Australia ahead of the 2019 World Cup.

“England’s got to be up there as one of the best teams in the world in one-day cricket at the moment,” he said. “It just looks like the way they play is for everyone to go really hard and Joe Root is sort of the rock in the middle. He just plays good cricket and guys bat around him.

“That works for them and it’s something that we might have to think about as well. Having guys that are going really hard and having someone, it might be me, who just bats normally and then you see how you go. I guess when you do that, perhaps you’re going to have days where you get bowled out for not many. But you back your players to come off maybe more often than not and get those big totals. That’s what the English players are doing at the moment.”