By Daniel Brettig
Travis Head promised to finish a soggy tour with a bang, and in chilly Bristol, his golden arm and whirling bat were the difference for Australia as England were reduced to time-wasting tactics in the hope of a washout.
When acting captain Steve Smith bunted Adil Rashid down the ground for a single from the fourth ball of the 21st over, the Australians had reached 2-165 in pursuit of 310 to win. Showers that had threatened all day then arrived for the afternoon, leaving the tourists 3-2 winners on rain calculations, achieved in the face of much illness and injury.
Steven Smith batting at the ODI against England.Credit: Getty
They will return home to await further word on the condition of Cameron Green, who made a dramatic departure with a back injury ahead of the penultimate game of the series. His place in plans for the India Test series is now in extreme doubt.
Head (4-28 and 31 from 26 balls) took the match and series awards, with help from Adam Zampa (2-74), Glenn Maxwell (2-49) and the powerful Matt Short (58), who hammered the fastest ODI 50 by an Australian against England, just 23 balls.
“We just let him play away and do his thing,” captain Mitch Marsh said of Head after sitting out the final game with soreness. “He’s found real consistency in the way he goes about things, and he’s a game changer. For him, it’s about being as clear as possible and we just let him go.
“I think he’s a very underrated bowler, and every time he bowls he seems to change the game in a way … he’s a great character when he bowls, love his celebrations. The conditions changed, it started spinning a bit later on in their innings. To have options like him, we’re lucky.”
England’s players had done their best to stop the game from getting to the 20 overs required for a result: a long drinks break after 17 overs was followed by the sight of Matthew Potts retying his laces and then calling for a new bowling boot.
These scenes were a somewhat amusing way for the series to end, and Marsh saw the funny side given the intervention of rain in Manchester at a crucial juncture of last year’s Ashes series.
“To be brutally honest, I didn’t really notice it. I was sitting out the back. So whether they were or whether they weren’t, who knows, but the old joke, the rain almost saved them again after last year,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of respect for England, I thought the series was played in a great manner throughout the whole five games.”
While England may bemoan the skies waiting to open until enough of a game had been played, they will have to look closely at the wanton squandering of their strongest platform all series.
At 2-202 in the 25th over, Harry Brook (72) and Ben Duckett (107) were in complete command against an Australian side looking cold, sore and eager for home. A tally in the 400-plus region looked likely, as Brook monstered the spin of Zampa.
But Smith and his spinners had noticed that Bristol’s short boundaries could be turned against aggressive batters because a late-season pitch was dry enough to afford plenty of deviation.
Zampa, bravely, tossed up again to Brook after being clattered for two sixes earlier in the over, and coaxed a miscue to long off that signalled a change in the game. Maxwell spun an off-break through Jamie Smith from around the wicket, before Zampa found some sharp turn and bounce to defeat the Lord’s destroyer Liam Livingstone.
Travis Head celebrates after taking the wicket of Brydon Carse in Bristol on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images
Duckett was still at the crease and going well, and it was Head’s introduction that pulled the contest decisively towards Australia.
He drew a leading edge from Duckett that was taken at mid-off, beat Jacob Bethell with a classic off-spinner for Josh Inglis to make the stumping, and twirled through Brydon Carse before ending a rearguard from Adil Rashid in the final over of the innings. England had lost 8-107.
With the clouds circling, Head and Short were quick to put their stamp on the chase. Short was brutal on anything back of a length, pulling one six well and truly out of the ground. Head took 20 from the over from Will Jacks when Brook tried to mimic Smith by trying spin.
When Head clunked Carse to cover in the eighth over, the Australians were already 78. Short edged Potts behind in the 13th over but by then the score had rolled all the way to 118. Smith and Inglis kept the rate ticking nicely until England started to slow things down – too late to change the result.
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