London, September 06: England suffered a blow ahead of the second one-day international against Australia at Lord’s when Stuart Broad was ruled out with a neck strain.
Tim Bresnan, the Yorkshire allrounder, replaced him with Eoin Morgan coming into the middle order in place of Adil Rashid, despite his impressive performance in the opening match at The Oval, as England were forced to juggle with the balance of their side.
Broad picked up the problem diving in the outfield during the first game on Friday at The Oval. It is the second injury England have suffered early in this series after Joe Denly was ruled out of the first two matches when he injured his knee following a tackle by Owais Shah during a warm-up game of football.
Unsurprisingly, given the 10.15am start, Andrew Strauss put Australia in when he won the toss so England will have a chance to make amends for their failed run-chase two days ago. Australia have named an unchanged side and yesterday James Hopes spoke about how important it was that they claimed the opening match to “stop the spiral” after the Ashes.
The first game at The Oval was a largely anonymous affair until the final ten overs when England’s lower order almost rescued a limp run-chase. Luke Wright hit powerfully, but the eye-catching display came from Rashid as he followed an impressive controlled effort with the ball by striking 31 from 23 balls. Normally that performance would have been enough to secure a place, but Strauss said that the team would be judged on conditions and Rashid has found out that nothing is certain at international level.
England 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Ravi Bopara, 3 Matt Prior (wk), 4 Owais Shah, 5 Paul Collingwood (capt), 6 Eoin Morgan, 7 Luke Wright, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Ryan Sidebottom, 11 James Anderson
Australia 1 Shane Watson, 2 Tim Paine (wk), 3 Cameron White, 4 Michael Clarke (capt), 5 Callum Ferguson, 6 Mike Hussey, 7 James Hopes, 8 Mitchell Johnson, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Nathan Hauritz, 11 Nathan Bracken
——Agencies