Lee steers Australia to 4-0 triumph

Australia registered an easy seven-wicket win over England to take an unbeatable 4-0 lead in the seven-match ODI series.

It was little more than slaughter in the sun as a fiery spell of bowling from Brett Lee and some abject batting once more from England saw Australia claim a resounding triumph in the NatWest one-day series.

With the first four matches now polished off by Australia with the minimum of fuss in the seven-game series a humiliating whitewash looms for Andrew Strauss' side.
England had rested Paul Collingwood and James Anderson but after Australia sauntered past England's total of 220 with seven wickets and 6.2 overs to spare it was the cricket fans who deserved a break from a series which has proved too long, too unwieldy and too one-sided at the end of a hectic summer.

The atmosphere at Lord's at times was not dissimilar from the British library a few miles down the road as the silent masses watched in frustration. By the end many had voted with their feet and accepted the inevitable. Who could blame them?

England were again too timid with the bat, not controlled enough with ball in hand and sloppy in the field against an Australian side re-energised by the return of captain Ricky Ponting who tortured England with a commanding 48 after his fortnight of R&R Down Under.

Yet it was the hostile spell of man-of-the-match Lee, who plundered five wickets for 49 runs, ably supported by the suffocating spin of Nathan Hauritz with two for 23 in his 10 overs, which was the biggest difference between the teams.

England, who desperately miss the injured Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, did not possess enough fire power or, more pertinently, the guts and application they had shown just three weeks ago when delivering that glorious last day to win the Ashes at the Oval.
Ignominy is nothing new for England, of course, in the one-day game.

They were beaten 5-0 by Sri Lanka in 2006. They were defeated 5-0 in India last year and would probably have gone down 7-0 then if the tour had not been temporarily suspended because of the Mumbai terror attack.

The biggest disappointment for England at Lord's, however, was that they had started brightly.

Strauss and Joe Denly, making his first appearance since his infamous pre-match injury in a kickabout, were aggressive until Denly went for 11, caught by Cameron White off the bowling of Lee.

Enter Ravi Bopara, the batsman who promises so much but has delivered so little against Australia this summer. An average of 15 in the Ashes Tests and scores of 49, 27 and 10 in the first three one-dayers had seen the pressure build.

The frustration was that after progressing to 26 he appeared to be poised to cut loose, until he was trapped lbw by Hauritz attempting to sweep.

At that stage England were 96 for two, their best start of the series so far. Salvation beckoned.

But too often this series the middle order has stalled. This time it all but fell out of the sky when Australia took pace out of the game via their spinners, Hauritz and Clarke.

Eleven overs went by without a boundary after Strauss had hit the four which brought up his half century.

And once Strauss had gone for 63, miscuing a leg-side slog to dolly a catch to Nathan Bracken, only Matt Prior with 29 and Owais Shah with 39 made any significant contribution.

Shah was unlucky, standing his ground after a full toss from Shane Watson was caught by Callum Ferguson. Shah believed the ball to be above waist height and therefore a no-ball and while the margin was tight he might have had a case. The umpires disagreed and he was gone.

So meagre was the resistance, however, that England's last five wickets tumbled for 20 runs in 22 balls, Luke Wright, Stuart Broad and Adil Rashid all seeing their stumps uprooted by Lee. A docked tail if there ever was one.

The fact is 220 was not enough. Not nearly enough. A par score on an even Lord's pitch was nearer 275. As Australia went about proving as they fairly rattled along with Tim Paine and Clarke racking up half centuries.

Ryan Sidebottom struggled with his line. Adil Rashid, usually so tight, handed the batsmen a series of leg-side long hops and by 4.30 pm the crowd were reduced to a Mexican Wave. A sure sign that all interest was gone.

Tim Bresnan did manage two wickets, picking up Ponting and Shane Watson but it was scant consolation. As former captain Michael Atherton put it. "England were dire." No-one at Lord's was in disagreement.

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Ponting angered by England tactics

Ricky Ponting delivered a stinging critique of England's gamesmanship after a contentious final session in which the hosts' 12th man and physiotherapist made multiple visits to the centre. The Australian captain's comments were tantamount to an accusation of time-wasting by an England side attempting to save the first Test, and will do little to defuse tensions between the two sides following a fractious day's play at Sophia Gardens.

Hostilities between the camps commenced before a ball was bowled on Sunday, with Mitchell Johnson and Kevin Pietersen involved in a verbal altercation after the latter hit balls in the direction of the Australian fast bowler. They continued after the commencement of play, with Andrew Flintoff temporarily standing his ground to a Ponting catch at second slip, and again when Stuart Broad and Peter Siddle bumped shoulders in the final session. A pitch invasion staged by a pair of protesters further added to the intensity of the occasion.

But the controversy most likely to linger was the involvement of Bilal Shafayat and Steve McCaig, the England 12th man and physiotherapist, who made appearances in the 102nd and 103rd overs of the innings despite scant evidence that the batsmen, Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar, called upon their services. Shafayat ran gloves and water to the batsmen - receiving a none too subtle chirp from Ponting for his troubles - while McCaig briefly checked on their physical condition at a time when Australia was desperately pressed for time to claim a victory that, barely an hour before, appeared an inevitability.

Speaking after the match, Ponting expressed his frustration over England's apparent stalling tactics, reprising memories of his vocal disapproval of England's use of substitute fielders during the 2005 Ashes series. An Australian team spokesman confirmed they would not make an official complaint, although Ponting invited the ICC's match referee, Jeff Crowe, to review the incident.

"I don't think it was required, he changed [the gloves] the over before and I don't think they'd be too sweaty in one over," Ponting said. "I'm not sure what the physio was doing out there. I didn't see anyone call for the physio to come out. As far as I'm concerned, it was pretty ordinary, really. But they can play whatever way they want to play. We came to play by the rules and the spirit of the game. It's up to them to do what they want to do.

"A few guys were questioning the umpires, a few guys were questioning the 12th man, but it's not the 12th man's fault. Someone from upstairs was sending him out there. That's where it needs to be taken up. There was nothing there that we could do out on the ground. We had to get them off as quick as we could and get a couple more overs.

"I was unhappy with it, but it lasted a couple of minutes, and we got them off the ground. I don't want to make that big a deal with it. I'm sure others will be taking it up with the England hierarchy, as they should. It's not the reason we didn't win. We've got to look at those reasons."

Andrew Strauss, the England captain, denied his side had contravened the spirit of cricket, insisting that the reasons for Shafayat's presence on the playing field in the dying moments of the game were legitimate.

"There was a lot of confusion, to be fair," Strauss said. "We first of all sent the 12th man out to let Jimmy and Monty know there was time left, and not the overs. Then there was drink spilled on Jimmy's gloves, and he called up to the dressing room and we weren't sure if he needed 12th man or physio. If Ricky is upset, that's a shame.

"Our intentions were good. We weren't trying to deliberately waste a huge amount of time. Those weren't our tactics. Those two were playing very well out in the middle and the reality of the situation is that Australia didn't take the final wicket and we got away with a draw."

Both captains sought to defuse the Johnson-Pietersen and Broad-Siddle rows. "It was just a few guys on the ground taking each other's space," Ponting said of Johnson's verbal exchange with Pietersen. Strauss, meanwhile, insisted the match had been played in a good spirit. "I don't think there were lines crossed," he said.

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