For all the longueurs of the past month, this tour has already gone down as a historic achievement by Andrew Strauss’ England. But Strauss and company have now created history for the wrong reasons as they failed to defend a total of 333 - the highest score they have ever made in defeat.
The Commonwealth Bank series has uncanny echoes of the summer of 2009, when a 6-1 defeat in the one-dayers made an anti-climactic postscript to England’s Ashes success. If their losing streak continues on Sunday, in the final match at the WACA, they will duplicate the scoreline this year.
On a sweltering night in Sydney, the match reached a breathless finish - and not just because the heat and humidity were so oppressive. In the final over of the match, Australian tailender John Hastings lined up a big drive at Chris Woakes, only for the ball to come flashing off his inside edge and down to the boundary for four runs that no fielding captain could possibly have blocked.
It was a cruel end for England, because that ball was probably only a quarter-inch from sneaking through and perhaps even bowling Hastings. There were already eight men out, and with only Shaun Tait left to do the job, Australia could perhaps have faltered on the final step. But England should have really closed the match out much earlier after Jonathan Trott had posted 137 - the second-highest individual score for an English batsman against Australia.
The aggregate of runs - 667 in the match - was the second-highest for any one-day international in Australia, and provided great entertainment for the crowd (even if only 19,479 turned out, leaving the Sydney Cricket Ground around half full). The ball kept flashing to the boundary all night, but it was probably the extra muscle behind Australia’s batsmen - who hit five sixes between them, as opposed to none for England - that made the difference.
If England have discovered a one-day star in this series, it must be Trott.
He would probably have started out as 12th man, had it not been for Paul Collingwood’s catastrophic loss of form. But he has now gathered 361 runs at an average of 72. At the present rate of progress, he is on track to become the fastest one-day batsman to 1000 runs, beating a record set by Viv Richards all the way back in 1980.
That “fastest” applies to the number of innings, not the rate of scoring. An accumulator rather than a dominator, Trott ticks along as quietly and invisibly as a personal pension plan. There were 64 singles in his innings, but only 39 dots - an impressively low ratio out of the 126 balls he faced.
But on such a sultry day, which Strauss described as “one of the hottest I have ever batted on”, flickering to and fro has its disadvantages. Trott was already cramping up in his 70s. Soon after completing his hundred, he had to call for a runner.
Australia’s captain Michael Clarke challenged the umpires on this point, perhaps recalling Strauss’ refusal to allow Graeme Smith a runner when he cramped up during the 2009 Champions Trophy. But the International Cricket Council changed their guidelines on this last year, so Trott was not only allowed to stop running, but could then return to field and bowl four overs during Australia’s innings. This was a useful bonus, as Collingwood was unavailable after suffering a back spasm.
Collingwood’s absence from England’s fielding effort was significant in all sorts of ways. First, it was another reminder that this seven-match series is stressing both sides beyond physical endurance. (Australia’s Steve Smith was another man to require a runner after tweaking a hip muscle.)
Second, it highlighted the danger of going into a match with no spare bowler - which is how England would line up in the World Cup if they persist in their strategy of using Collingwood at No 7. Third, it might well have cost England victory, as his bowling would probably have been more economical than the combined work of Trott and Kevin Pietersen, who conceded 72 from their 10 overs.
Mind you, Woakes clocked up 73 against his name, and James Anderson - usually Mr Reliable - had figures of 10-0-91-1, the second-worst in England’s history after Steve Harmison’s 10-0-97-0 against Sri Lanka.
Every one of Australia’s top seven batsmen made at least 20, including Mitchell Johnson, who was promoted to No 4 and bashed a lively 59.
Clarke all but carried Australia home with 82, his best innings of the whole summer, before he was run out in the penultimate over.
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