How New Boy Jason Has Completed Aussie Jigsaw

Adam Collins explains the thinking behind the rapid rise of Australia in the ODI format which culminated in victory over England this week.

Do you remember 12months ago? There wasn’t a drop of rain. The early signs were there that football might just be coming home. Jack and Danni’s romance made us all feel a bit better about the world in the Love Island villa. Objectively, it was a great summer.

That is, unless you were one of Australia’s white-ball tourists. Their winter getaway to the Northern Hemisphere was anything but pleasant. As England time and again feasted on the offerings of a second-string seam attack, captain Tim Paine sat behind the microphone after each of the six defeats unable to avoid the reality. The sandpaper saga had reduced them to this.

Justin Langer remembers it, too, often using it in the time since as a reference point as when he realised just how tough the job was for him as the coach. There is little wonder, then, the extent to which there is now a smile on his face. The last time Australia hosted their enemy, just months before the Newlands farrago, BEAT ENGLAND was the slogan plastered everywhere. On Tuesday, that’s precisely what they did. At Lord’s no less. And how.

“It was a great day, wasn’t it?” he said of the 64-run triumph that confirmed Australia’s place in the semi-finals of this World Cup. Most instructive is how pleased Langer is that he didn’t identify England’s strategy of a year ago as something that his side needed to match to compete. Instead, he instead wanted Australia’s ODI team to play to their strengths from the moment they rebooted in January during a home bilateral series against India.