Rose Bowl: Cameron White scored his maiden ODI hundred as Australia, chasing a target of 229 to win, cruised home in 48.3 overs with 6 wickets in hand. The win gives Australia a 3-0 lead in the seven match series.

With this win, Australia now has to win just one more match out of the remaining 4 matches to win the series. England won the toss once again and this time they decided to bat first. They got off to very good start again thanks to Andrew Strauss and Ravi Bopara who added 41 in 7.5 overs.

But, Ravi Bopara and Matthew Prior fell within the space of six balls to slow an uncharacteristically quick start and, although captain Andrew Strauss hit 63, the home side’s efforts to translate its Test success into limited-overs cricket continued to fail.

Watson took 3-36 as only a 40-run ninth-wicket partnership from Bresnan (31) and Ryan Sidebottom (24) pushed the score past 200 to give England’s bowlers something to bowl at. Eoin Morgan managed a relatively brisk 43 but Paul Collingwood’s 28 from 52 balls were more typical of the kind of batting performance we have been witnessing from England in this series.

In reply, Australia lost Shane Watson early when James Anderson trapped him lbw with the score on just 16. Tim Paine (29) also didn’t last long as he was also trapped in front of the wickets by Collingwood with the score at 52. The fall of the second wicket brought White and Clarke together and they made sure that Australia didn’t have any more hiccups. For differing reasons, White and Clarke had plenty to prove in this contest – the return of Ricky Ponting for Saturday’s fourth ODI will require White to vacate his No. 3 spot, and Clarke to hand back the captaincy.

Clarke (52) was dismissed with the score at 195 after adding 143 for the 3^rd wicket with Cameron White. But the night clearly belonged to one man — Cameron White.

It was a night for White to celebrate his arrival on the international stage. Having never batted higher than No. 5 before this series, his 116-ball 105 followed on from his maiden half-century in the first match at The Oval, and whereas England’s batsmen have continually found new and innovative ways to throw away their promising starts, he went against his reputation as a hitter to set himself a platform and, then, crucially, to build on it.

With the series at 3-0, England will have to come up with something very special to make a comeback in this series. They are clearly missing Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen in the team but all they can do right now is go back to the drawing board, get their basics right and give it their all in the next 4 matches.

Brief Scores:

Australia 230 for 4 (White 105, Clarke 52) beat England 228 for 9 (Strauss 63, Watson 3-36) by six wickets

Man of the Match: Cameron White

Tagged with: Andrew Strauss, Australia, Cameron White, England, Matthew Prior, Michael Clarke, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara, Rose Bowl, Ryan Sidebottom, Shane Watson, Tim Bresnan

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