The last time England and Australia had met in white-ball cricket, it was the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup and the home side defeated the defending champions and dumped them out of the competition. England went onto win their first-ever ODI World Cup, beating New Zealand in the finals.
Meanwhile, Australia last played an international game against New Zealand in March, before the Coronavirus pandemic halted all cricket for more than five months.
But they are now ready to go against England, when they enter the Southampton ground on September 4, Friday, for the first T20I of the three-match series. Skipper Aaron Finch has also insisted that the team is not carrying any baggage of the World Cup semi-final loss into this limited-overs encounters.
“Looking back to that game, we didn’t get enough runs. We were three down early with the bat and always chasing our tail. When you have a quality side, well the best in the world, chasing a small total and with how aggressive they are, you need early wickets and they blew us out of the water. “It was a tough day but it is a different format and we are not holding any scars over that, I can guarantee that in T20 cricket,” Finch said.
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During the enforced break, Finch revealed plans to win back the World Cup in 2023 stepped up a notch with no cricket to focus on.
“I think the long play is honestly really important and something we have been sitting down and planning over the last few months. Probably what the COVID break did for Australian Cricket was give us the chance to sit back and look at everything as a whole and dissect that.”
“When you move from series to series, you almost focus on the results a lot more so to take the results out and sit back and assess everything leading up to the 2023 World Cup and work back from that date gives us a really clear plan on the direction we want the one-day team to go,” Finch added.
He also said, “I think we have done the planning really well in T20s over the last couple of years obviously with that meant to have gone ahead around this time but the 50-over one we feel we have a clear direction both with personnel and strategy.”
The no.1 ranked T20I team Australia begin preparations for the 2021 T20 World Cup to be held in India, by taking on England, who are ranked second in the ICC rankings of the format.
“We are pretty settled on the way we structure our T20 side at the moment, he played nicely the other day, but I think he might have to wait a little bit longer in T20 cricket,” Finch said while hinting that Marnus Labuschagne might not find a place in playing XI.
(Press Association inputs)
