A lot has changed with Australia’s ODI fortunes over the past one year as the defending ICC World Cup champions get ready to lock horns with hosts and arch-rivals England in a crunch clash at Lord’s on Tuesday.
The Aussies were comprehensively dominated by England in ODIs last year with Eoin Morgan’s men winning nine out of the 10 meetings. They first thrashed Australia by 4-1 Down Under at the start of 2018 before whitewashing them by 5-0 in the home series a few months later.
However, Aaron Finch and his men have turned things around in style ever since with the side having clinched victory in 13 out of their last 14 ODI outings.
The Australian skipper believes the side has evolved drastically since those losses to England and will be a much different beast when they take the field against the hosts on Tuesday.
“We tried last year to beat them at their own game and it wasn’t very successful,” Finch said on the eve of the clash.
“We came up pretty short in that series. That was having quite an inexperienced group at the time, there was a lot of change in the one-day side at the time.
“When you’ve got an inexperienced group, it can hit them a bit harder. It’s tough to play someone else’s game – you have to be true to your game plan and what your style is.”
Australia have tasted just the sole defeat in the tournament against India so far with five wins out of six matches. England, on the other hand, have not had it all their way with the hosts suffering two shock defeats already in their campaign.
The latest came in a shock 20-run upset at the hands of Sri Lanka where they failed to chase down a target of 233 runs. Finch, however, is refusing to read too much into England’s loss against Sri Lanka.
“When you look at England over the last four years, they’ve been bloody consistent, so you can’t read a huge amount into it,” he said.
“What we’ve talked about the whole tournament is if you let your guard down, or your mind slip a bit too far forward, any team can beat you on the day,” the Aussie skipper added.