SOUTHAMPTON, England, Sept 11 (Askume) – Australia’s Travis Head smashed a brilliant half-century off 19 balls to help his team draw 28-28 with England in the Twenty20 series opener in Southampton on Wednesday.
Hyde played an explosive innings of 59 runs with the help of 4 sixes and 8 fours, helping Australia reach 86-0 in 5.5 overs.
Opener Matthew Short also smashed two sixes in his 41-run knock but Australia were 118/2 at the break and England’s spinners bowled them out for 179.
After taking 10 Australian wickets for 93 runs, England could not maintain the momentum they had built up during the innings and were never really in contention.
The England team, which includes T20 debutants Jordan Cox, Jacob Bethell and Jamie Overton, is captained by Phil Salter, in the absence of Jos Buttler due to injury, on a cool night, with wickets falling time and again to see the team record drop to 52-4.
Sean Abbott took 3 wickets, Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa took 2 wickets each as England won by 151 runs.
Hyde bowled a couple of decent overs but he excelled thereafter, giving Australia a tough time in the powerplay and causing trouble for England.
Sam Curran faced some terrible punishment in the fifth over, with Hyde hitting fours in a row before taking a hat-trick of sixes to end the innings with four.
The final header went wide and his ball flew past Saqib Mahmood towards the square-leg boundary, where Cox held on to the ball.
“I tried to get used to the fast wickets, the ball bowled well and the shorties got off to a good start,” Head said. “It was a bit of luck, but I tried to play with a free mindset.”
Following Hyde’s dismissal, Australia captain Mitchell Marsh was bowled by Adil Rashid after taking two runs, but Short’s aggressive approach kept Australia heading for a huge score.
Although Short was dismissed in the 11th over, the innings began to derail when Curran went for a fierce sweep off Liam Livingstone.
Livingstone dismissed Marcus Stoinis and Tim David LBW with consecutive penalties to reduce Australia’s deficit to 132/5.
Josh Inglis led Australia with 37, but England effectively destroyed the end, taking three wickets for three wickets to reduce Australia’s deficit to 172–9.
Off-spinner Livingstone took 3 wickets in three overs and conceded 22 runs.
England dismissed Will Jacks (6) in the second over of Hazlewood and Cox (17) in the fifth over with David taking a brilliant catch off Xavier Bartlett.
Captain Salter scored 20 runs but this time Short took a brilliant catch on the boundary.
Livingstone was England’s top-scorer with 37 off 27 balls but all hopes of chasing the target were dashed when he was clean bowled by Hazlewood.
“It’s exciting to see Heidi and Shorty scoring 200-plus runs. We do our best to stop that from happening,” said Australian captain Marsh.
“It was a 200-run wicket and when Heidi scored, the conditions didn’t matter.”
The second match of the T20 series will be played in Cardiff on Friday.
