ICC World Cup Cricket 2015: Australia vs England, Pool A, Match 2 at MCG in caricatures

In the second game of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, the game’s age-old nemeses met at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), a stadium they played their first ever Test almost 140 years back. Australia versus England attracted a full house at the iconic MCG but as expected the former comfortably thrashed the latter by 111 runs.

Here, even the Aussie-Kiwi rivalry was quite apparent. Both hosts enter the tournament as one of the favourites and if New Zealand won their opening match by 98 runs, the dominant neighbours bettered the feat to stay at the top of the table.

Batting first, Australia put on a massive 342. Opener Aaron Finch belted 135, his sixth One-Day International (ODI) hundred, what helped him early on was English fielding and was dropped in the very first over by Chris Woakes. Finch made England pay. Skipper George Bailey and Glenn Maxwell too joined the party later and the score was further boosted by a late flourish by Brad Haddin. England pacer Steve Finn, who picked up a hat-trick in the last three balls of the innings ended with figures of 10-0-71-5.

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England were never comfortable in the chase and they lost wickets at regular juncture. All-rounder Mitchell Marsh, making his first World Cup appearance, picked up a fifer as England were bowled out for 231. Thanks to English batsman James Taylor’s 98, England suffered lesser humiliation in the hands of their old foe.

Brief scores:

Australia 342 for 9 in 50 overs (Aaron Finch 135, George Bailey 55, Glenn Maxwell 66; Steve Finn 5-71) bt England 231 in 41.5 overs (James Taylor 98*; Mitchell Marsh 5-33) by 111 runs