England hosts Australia in the final match of the 3-matches T20I series on Tuesday evening.
Team Preview
England will face Australia for the final time in the T20I series in Southampton as they would aim to take a clean sweep in the series. After registering the narrow 2-runs victory in the first game, England continued their dominance and defeated the visitors by 6 wickets. With this win, England has also snatched the top rankings from Australia. Finch opted to bat first and Australia lost Warner, Carey, and Smith in power-play to put a dull start. Captain tried to put a steady stand with Stoinis and later, Maxwell-Agar both took Australia to an imposing total of 157.
England had no issues in the chase as after losing Bairstow early, Malan and Buttler added 87 runs to take the game away from Australia. Finch even tried spin and they got three wickets for the next 29 runs but Jos Buttler scored 77 to guide England home and a 2-0 lead in the series. For Tuesday’s encounter, Buttler will not be available and Billings will be back in the squad. Australia is facing troubles after missing cricket for 5 months. Jos Phillipe might be back in the squad for the final T20I and Australia can even try Labuschagne in the middle-overs.
Pitch Report
The Rose Bowl, Southampton is a decent T20 ground. It also offers a bit of help to spin as we saw with Zampa, Agar, and Rashid. It’s a friendly track and pacers can trouble with the new ball. On Tuesday, we expect another cracking game of T20. Chasing is always an ideal call but it might be tricky if the score is above 160.
Possible XI
England
Jonny Bairstow (WK), Tom Banton, Dawid Malan, Eoin Morgan (c), Sam Billings, Moeen Ali, Tom Curran, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood
Australia
Aaron Finch (c), David Warner, Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey (wk), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa
Key Players
England
Dawid Malan
Previous outings – 66 (43), 42 (32)
Chris Jordan
Last 10 T20Is – Wickets: 11, SR: 16.8
Australia
Aaron Finch
Last 7 T20Is – Runs: 266, Avg: 44.33
Ashton Agar
Last 7 T20Is – Wickets: 15, SR: 11.2
