T20 World Cup | England make resounding statement as Buttler, Woakes, Jordan punish Australia

If there was a dominating performance by a batsman who completely overshadowed the opposition with a brutal display of power hitting, Jos Buttler’s carnage of Australian bowlers on Saturday night in Dubai was indeed the best of them.

From the express pace of Micthell Starc to the leg-spin of Adam Zamp all travelled to all parts of the ground and Buttler almost single-handedly thrashed Australia with the bat to complete a perfect night for England.

Australia were poor with the bat both in execution and approach in their mind. They were quite fearful from the very first over when in a change of tactic, Eoin Morgan tossed the ball to Adil Rashid. 

In the end, England finished the game with their reputation as one of the strongest sides in the tournament firmly enhanced and Australia ended the game with signs of a side starting to unravel after a few good performances.

Jos Buttler’s elite thrashing

Contrary to what has been his modus operandi in white-ball games, Buttler started off slowly with the bat and waited for Australians to commit errors and in a desperate attempt to defend 125 runs, there were a lot of them from the men in yellow.

His first shot in anger came as late as in the fourth over when he danced down the track to smack Ashton Agar into the stand at long-off. He never looked back from that point and punished Josh Hazlewood in the next over to seek the complete authority of the game.

The final over of the powerplay by Starc turned out to be the point when all hell broke loose for both sides and Buttler was supreme both on the back foot and front foot. First, he hit a nonchalant six over long-off when Starc tried to bowl full and then when the bowler corrected his length by bowling short, he was ever ready to punish the next ball for another six.

The plight of Starc did not stop in that over and he was hit for three fours in his next over by him and Dawid Malan. 

After Starc, it was the turn of leg spinner Zampa, who took the wicket of Jason Roy and Buttler did not allow his balls to turn whenever he decided to go big and reached his fifty in 25 balls with a colossal six.

It was Zampa’s third over and 11th over overall when England all but completed the complete mauling of their arch-rivals and Buttler finished at a 32-ball 71.

Woakes’s—a continuous success with the new ball

Chris Woakes was one of the dark horses of the England bowling attack coming into the tournament and he has gone on to become their strike bowler towards the end of the Super 12 stage.

After scalping important wickets against West Indies and Bangladesh, he was once again amongst wickets and turned the clock back to the semi-final against the same opponent two years earlier in the ICC ODI World Cup. 

Dawid Warner got valuable runs in the last game and felt confident to get going against Woakes. He needed to go as well with the importance of powerplay becoming more and more evident in the tournament and he walked down the track to get him off his length. However, Woakes was up to the task and he pulled his length back and a committed Warner had no options but to poke at an away going delivery to Buttler.

His second scalp—Glenn Maxwell dashed Australian hopes of having someone who could take the game to the opposition irrespective of where they were and with Maxwell’s wicket, it was all about reaching some sort of total for the Aussies.

England have picked more wickets in the powerplay in the tournament than they have picked in the entire last year and Woakes has been the tormentor-in-chief of oppositions for them with the new ball.

Chris Jordan—the force multiplier

Eoin Morgan has been a master tactician of the game and so has been his adaptability in changing bowlers as per changing conditions of a game and nature of opponents.

He was quick to take Rashid off the bowling as soon as Steve Smith came out to bat and asked Chris Jordan to go with the new ball. Jordan has not been known for his new-ball exploits and hence the move could have gone either way with Smith going on to resurrect Australia.

But, Jordan got the big fish in Smith, who was desperate to get a move on looking at Finch struggling to get the ball off the square. His shoulders have been rated strong and he found enough extra bounce may be due to the ball getting stuck in the pitch and the ball did not arrive at Smith as quickly as he expected. Woakes, who was standing at mid-on established that nothing could go wrong for him and his side as he backpedalled to take a one-handed screamer.

By the time he returned with his second spell, his mates had made a light work of the Australian batting lineup. However, a sluggish Finch and Pat Cummins, who hit his first two balls for sixes, were there to keep Australia’s hopes of reaching closer to 140 runs were there.

Jordan finished the challenge in the first two balls of his fourth over and quashed any hope of an Australian revival. He finished with a staggering bowling figure of 4-0-17-3.

Off day or reality check? Australia face tough questions

Australia were never the favourites in a keenly matched group bit their in-form players ensured they got two wins out of their first two games and their fans and a section of experts were victims of recency bias.

However, Australia were quick to not let them live with the bias and compelled them to course-correct by performing at the level or closer to their level in the recent past. None of their batsmen got out on the boundary or was the victim of mistiming a glory shot. Instead, almost all of them were dismissed in manners suggestive of their struggle on the night to either pick the length or the line of the ball or else they were the signs of them not watching the ball closely enough.

Australia could certainly move on from the game deeming it a bad day in office but they are the most likely side to get on a losing spree as has been the case in the last few years and the coach Justin Langer and Aaron Finch have tasks on their hands to keep them agile of the opportunities at stake.