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Tom curran kept his nerve like England hit Australia by two runs in a final ball thriller to win the first Twenty20 international game at Southampton on Friday and go 1-0 up in a three-game series.
Australia, in their first competitive match in nearly six months due to the coronavirus, were doing light work with a goal of 163, while captain Aaron Finch (46) and David Warner (58) posted 98 for the first wicket.
But star hitter Steve Smith’s departure for just 18 sparked a meltdown that saw Australia lose four wickets for nine runs on 14 balls.
Chris Jordan, in his 50th game at this level, conceded just four runs in the penultimate more than ended with Ashton Agar.
A goal of 15 of six balls became five of one.
But Marcus Stoinis, having hit Curran a six early in the end, was unable to connect another six needed for a win or the four that would have tied the scores and pushed the game into a Super Over.
“I thought the bowlers really did well in the last eight overs,” England captain Eoin Morgan told Sky Sports.
“We got the ball to talk a little bit, Adil (Rashid) took those two important terrains to get into that intermediate order and expose it a bit.”
Meanwhile, Finch said that he or Warner should have seen Australia at home.
“We knew England were going to keep coming up hard and they executed it very well,” he said.
“I would probably be more critical of myself and Davey, who got us off to a good start and neither of us pushed to make a contribution to win the game.”
Finch soon got going with a four-on-four fast pitcher, Jofra Archer, who played his first international match with the white ball since throwing the decisive Super Over in England’s victory in the 50-year-old World Cup final over New Zealand at Lord’s last year.
And on a field where he made 156 in a Twenty20 international game against England in 2013, Finch hit leg pitcher Adil Rashid, arguably the hosts’ best current T20 pitcher, for 14 runs on three balls, with six huge in a row. followed by two extra. -Cover driven on four legs.
England didn’t take a wicket until the 11th when Finch failed to clear Jordan midway after lofting Archer.
Then, Rashid gave England hope with two wickets on five balls on his way to 2-29, with Smith trapped deep before all-rounder Glenn Maxwell (one) hit Morgan directly in a short extra coverage.
Archer then dropped Warner off his pads to finish the left-hander’s 47-ball innings with four fours.
Australia now had two new hitters at zero and Alex Carey had made just one when he was brought down by fast pitcher Mark Wood, one of three 50-year-old World Cup winners remembered by England, along with Jos Buttler and Archer, then of the tie T20. series against Pakistan.
Earlier, Australia held England to 162-7 after Finch won the toss.
Kane Richardson took 2-13 of three overs and Glenn Maxwell’s occasional spin 2-14 of his three.
England were on track to hit a grand total while starter Buttler was hitting 44.
But Dawid Malan’s 66, the left-hander’s eighth score of fifty or more in just 14 international T20 innings, was the only other contribution to note.
Maxwell took out the dangerous Morgan by just five when he launched Maxwell through the sky and Smith, running from the start, made a good catch in the floodlights of the Ageas Bowl. Malan completed a fifty-seven balls before pocketing Richardson.
The biosecurity series, behind closed doors, continues in Southampton on Sunday.
