England send out a statement as they ease past Australia with flair to record their third win of the T20 World Cup

England continued their dominant start in the T20 World Cup as they secured an emphatic eight-wicket victory over Australia.

After already beating both Bangladesh and the West Indies convincingly, a brilliant all-round performance from the Three Lions sent out a huge statement to the rest of the countries.

England’s seam bowlers showed their class in the powerplay as they restricted Australia to 21/3, their second-lowest score in T20 internationals. Chris Woakes was the pick of the players as he was directly involved in three big wickets in the first six overs.

Woakes was getting the ball to swing like he was prime James Anderson with a new ball at Lord’s. As David Warner tried to make his way down the pitch, he tried to guide the ball down to third man but could only find Jos Buttler’s gloves.

Chris Jordan was having a similar effect with the ball and his very first ball was struck by the bottom of Steve Smith’s bat. Woakes was backpedalling toward the edge of the inner circle and managed to pluck the ball out of the air with one hand.

The 32-year-old then completed a wonderful spell as he trapped inform Glenn Maxwell for an LBW late in the fourth over. Despite a review, the wicket was given to Woakes who finished with an economy rate of 5.75 from his four overs.

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All five bowlers managed to take a wicket in the innings with a bowling display so dominant that Morgan did not need to utilise Moeen Ali in the perfect conditions for the all-rounder. Instead, spinners Adil Rashid and Liam Livingstone took one wicket each whilst Chris Jordan put up impressive figures of 3/17 from his four overs.

Tymal Mills was fairly expensive from overs as he was on the wrong end of some big hitting from Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc at the end of the innings. However, he still picked up two wickets as England’s relentless bowling in the tournament has been nothing short of fantastic.

After the innings break, the Buttler show began.

Buttler and Jason Roy got off to a flying start in the powerplay, hitting a boundary in each of the first six overs. The best of the wicketkeeper’s shots came in the final over of the powerplay as he hit Starc for a huge six which reached the top tier and then followed it up with another six on the next ball.

The opening partnership was worth 66 runs and was ended after Roy missed the attempted reverse sweep and was hit plumb on his pads. This did not however stop Buttler from causing devasting damage.

He continued to attack Starc, something only a brave few would do, and then brought up the joint-fastest 50 of the tournament as he hit Zampa straight back over his head for six.

Dawid Malan was the only other batsman to get out as he edged Ashton Agar’s delivery to Matthew Wade, but Jonny Bairstow did not want to stay out there for long.

After warming up with a few balls against Agar, he hit back-to-back sixes against Zampa in the following over which ended up being worth 20 runs after Buttler also found the boundary rope.

Bairstow scored the winning run but it was Buttler’s 71 and not out off 32 balls which steered England to the huge victory. His strike rate of 221.88 against a world-class bowling line-up will no doubt put fear against upcoming opponents.

England face Sri Lanka in their next fixture knowing a win will all but take them into the semi-final stage.

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