Despite the fact that the Australian team is without some of their best players, they have more than one reason to clinch a victory in the third ODI of the ongoing 5-match series against England on Tuesday in order to keep the series alive. A lot will depend on Australia’s batting if they are looking for a win. 

Calling for the top-order batsmen, including himself, to be “more accountable”, Aaron Finch said, “At times, I think, we’re playing some good cricket, at times we’re making some mistakes that seem to be happening pretty regularly. We keep talking about middle-order collapses and losing wickets in clumps and it keeps happening. I don’t know whether we’re working ourselves up into a frenzy about things like that but it’s disappointing obviously.”

In recent times, the Australians have lost 13 of their last 15 completed ODIs and seven of the last eight, which is pretty alarming for them. If they lose this series, it will be their fourth successive bilateral ODI series loss. In the ongoing series against the No.1 ODI team in the world, it’s been the English spinners, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid who have done most of the damage, as they shared 10/196 from 38 overs. And with Liam Plunkett picking up seven wickets on his own, it’s not been a happy time for the visitors.

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Talking about the same, Finch said, “It’s about minimizing a little bit of risk at times. In the past, we’ve been ultra-aggressive against spin and we’re probably still going with that a little bit at times rather than taking the game a little bit deeper. I think we’ve got to be a little bit more honest with ourselves and our teammates and probably just communicate a little bit better and be accountable to each other and just try and soak up a little bit more pressure.”

For Australia, Shaun Marsh’s 131 in the second ODI was a stellar effort. But outside of that, the best have been Glenn Maxwell’s 62 and 31 and Ashton Agar’s 40 and 46 – but they bat at No.6 and No.7 respectively. Point it out, Aaron said, “We’ve got a few guys who can bat at the top of the order. Over the last 12 or 18 months I’ve batted in the middle order in quite a lot of T20 cricket – the IPL, the recent T20 tri-series – and done it reasonably successfully as well.”

With the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 less than a year away, Australia has to work out their best possible combination if they wish to defend their title in England and Wales.