If you were an Australian supporter of a certain pragmatic bent, you might be quite pleased with a washout against South Africa at the Champions Trophy. With a win already banked, you slide past your most dangerous opponent in Group B without having conceded any advantage to them. It leaves you level with them on three points and guaranteed a semi-final as long as you can beat an Afghanistan team that, despite their recent advancements and the memorably close result last time you played, you should still beat anytime, anywhere across a format as extended as 50 overs.
If you’re an Australian supporter of the sort of bullishness natural to Australian supporters, including any past or current Australian player, you would say that you always want to play the best teams because you’ll beat them while having a grand old time in the process, and that sliding past your most dangerous opponent is just a missed opportunity to bank a second win, go to four points, and all but guarantee your semi-final before the final group game against Afghanistan comes into it.
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Both calculations are right, it’s just a matter of how one prefers to hedge risk. The washout does work to the advantage of England, a team that lost to Australia last weekend after following a huge total with a bowling and fielding performance that was an almost impressive display of absence.
The requirement for England from here remains the same: beat Afghanistan and then South Africa, get four points. But had South Africa beaten Australia on Tuesday, there was still the chance of both those teams ending on four points, leaving England out of the top two on net run rate. Now England has a potential path past either of those teams, should Australia or South Africa lose their remaining fixture. Essentially this situation has doubled England’s options.
Results aside, Australia would have liked another hit-out. The chase of 352 against England went as well as it could have done: finishing with 356 meant that only six international teams have posted a bigger score batting second in a win, across close to 5,000 ODIs. But the chance to build on that confidence would have been useful for this rather makeshift Australian XI as players try to settle in a configuration that will probably last no longer than this brief tournament.
Seeing the white-ball wicketkeeper batting at No 5 with the Test keeper at No 6 was a curious one, for instance, where they combined for the game’s decisive 146-run stand, not to mention the sight of Alex Carey without gloves or pads taking catches at mid-on. Josh Inglis had previously pushed past Carey with more dynamic scoring options during the 2023 World Cup, but was injured in England last September when Carey batted with impressive coolness and composure. It made sense that Carey’s batting was good enough to keep a spot now that he’s back in form, though less sense for incumbency to demand that Inglis held the gloves when Carey is the better keeper.
Matt Short was able to make a decisive half-century at the top of the order, the mature-age new arrival still finding his feet at this level, while Marnus Labuschagne was able to shake perceptions of stodginess with 47 at faster than a run a ball. Glenn Maxwell shook off any disappointment at missing the recent Sri Lanka tests with a savage burst to ice the game. All of them would still have benefited from more than two matches before a potential trip to Dubai for a semi-final.
The bowlers though might be grateful to have been spared the task against South Africa’s powerful batting, given the entire lineup got smacked around at well over a run a ball by England, bar Nathan Ellis. His variations and decisions about when to use them continue to impress, and while he didn’t take wickets, his ability to rein in scoring meant that other bowlers did. Australia’s relative bowling weakness means more big scores may need to be chased, and while Inglis and company made it look easy, that’s not the kind of task a team wants to be set too often.
One game to go for Australia, then – their first in the format against Afghanistan since that fateful day in Mumbai in 2023, when Glenn Maxwell turned 91 for 6 on its head with the most outrageous innings in one-day cricket. His double hundred won’t be on this scorecard, but it will doubtless be in the minds of the Afghan players. Whether that makes them focus on comeuppance or lose their focus will be up to them, but if in the meantime they’ve beaten England on Wednesday as they did in the last World Cup, they will also have semi-finals in their sights.
