England vs Australia (1st ODI) - The Oval, London - Friday 4th September 2009

After completing the Ashes victory at The Oval, it was (almost) straight back there for the first of a seven game one-day series. I say "almost", there were 2 T20 games, neither of which produced a result, so we had been starved of cricket for a couple of weeks. Obviously, some of the personnel were different for this game than for the tests, with people like Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara back in the lineup. Joe Denly sadly missed out, after being tackled in a football kickabout the previous day (by the aforementioned Mr Shah), and Adil Rashid was somebody that most fans were looking forward to seeing.

After winning the toss and putting Australia into bat first, England did a decent enough job of restricting them to a not too damaging total. The Aussies started well and finished well, but the middle of the innings saw England restricting them from scoring too much. Rashid and Swann were the pick of the economical bowlers, and Paul Collingwood weighed in with a couple of useful wickets. They picked it up at the end of the innings, but 20 overs in the middle where they hardly scored ensured that England had a very gettable total of 261 to chase.

Having done some of the good stuff first, England then did what they often do in 1 day cricket - failed to finish the job. The target of 261 was always in sight, but we were always behind the pace in trying to chase it. It meant that England were never out of the game (literally until the last ball, where they needed a six to win), but we never really kicked into gear and started scoring quickly enough. So, there was the hope that we might make it, but an ever growing sense that we would not. Ravi Bopara was probably the pick of the top order batsmen, making a good 49; Luke Wright and Adil Rashid also weighed in with useful runs towards the end - but they were fighting against a tide that wasn't going their way.

England's one day side isn't a patch on the Test team, and in some respects, it isn't hard to see why. Shah was out hit wicket, Wright was out on a silly run out, and at least 2 batsmen pulled stupid shots to get caught. When we make mistakes like those, it isn't a surprise that we don't win games. Some bucking our ideas up is needed for the rest of the series.