England eves beat Australia, go 1-0 up

The English women easily beat their Australian counterparts in the first ODI between the two teams of a five match series at Chelmsford in Essex, by a margin of nine wickets. England now leads the series 1-0.

Australia won the toss and decided to bat first, but was jolted early with the wicket of Shelley Nitschke off the very first ball of the match. And as if that was not enough a blow, Katherine Brunt went on to dislodge Lisa Sthalekar in the same over to reduce the Aussies to 4/2 at the end of the first over. Isa Guha then had former Australian captain Karen Rolton edge one to the wicket-keeper, while stand-in captain Nicky Shaw getting rid of her Australian counterpart Jodie Fields for 15; the tourists at 34/4 and in strife.

Holly Colvins bagged the first of her three wickets when opener Leah Poulton finally fell for 8, and Alex Blackwell and Ellyse Perry gave her two more to reduce the Aussies to 57/7 and in a danger of scoring even less than 100.

Lauren Ebsary and Rene Farrell then recovered a bit of the lost ground with a 30 run stand, and after Ebsary’s dismissal, it was Sarah Andrews who added a valuable 36 for the tenth wicket to propel the Aussies towards 133.

However, the English openers exhibited no such qualms about the pitch or the opposition bowling and added 119 for the first wicket. Wicket-keeper Sarah Taylor continued with her good form and scored 68, while Caroline Atkins scored an unbeaten 48 to guide their team through. England ended with 134/1 in 27 overs to go 1-0 up. Taylor’s 68 off 74 balls won her the player-of-the-match.

The second game will be played on the same ground on Tuesday.