England captain Eoin Morgan on Saturday heaped praise on his bowlers for their ‘relentless’ discipline, saying they have come up ‘trumps’ on different wickets to help the side inch closer to a T20 World Cup 2021 semifinal spot with three successive wins.
Opting to bowl, Chris Woakes (2/23) and Chris Jordan (3/17) rattled Australia’s top-order as England bundled them out for 125 in Dubai on Saturday.
Opener Jos Buttler then hammered a brutal 32-ball 71 not out to complement the superlative performance from the bowlers as England crushed Australia by eight wickets, reaching the modest target of 126 with 8.2 overs to spare.
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“Relentless with our lengths and our plans and the bowlers came up trumps. Depending on how the wicket plays you have to have one or two guys to go to, and they came up trumps,” Morgan said at the post-match presentation.
“The challenge for us is adapting to conditions away from home, we did that really well in the first two games then a big test against a really strong Australian side,” he added. England had beaten defending champions West Indies by five wickets and Bangladesh by eight wickets in their earlier matches.
“The openers look in really good form, Roy MoM against Bangladesh and Buttler following suit. They are all hard ones. We treat everyone with the same respect, it's a tough competition, we go from here to Sharjah for two games in five days.”
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Adjudged Player of the Match for his brilliant figures of 3/17, Chris Jordan said he just tried to keep it simple.
“Great bowling effort from the boys, Woakesy (Chris Woakes) and Rash (Adil Rashid) set the tone. Trying to keep it simple, go with the rhythm of the game, hold our length, be nice and straight, and the way the boys batted was unbelievable,” he said.
“I backed my yorkers, stick your strengths and keep improving your game. So many players trying to make the team, but let everything else take care of itself.” Australia captain Aaron Finch rued the loss of quick wickets during the powerplay.
“When we lost a few wickets in the Powerplay we had to hang in there, get to a total we thought would be defendable if we got it right with the ball,” he said.
“(Chris) Woakes is a brilliant exponent when there’s seam early. We had to bowl them out, no issues there, but Buttler played a hell of an innings. We got off to a poor start, but a couple of days off to recharge, but we’ll dust ourselves off and come back for Bangladesh.”
