Manchester: Australia captain Michael Clarke admitted he hadn’t seen a 4-0 one-day campaign defeat by England coming after his side made some unwanted history here.
England cruised to a seven-wicket win late on Tuesday in a rain-affected fifth and final one-day international, triumphing in convincing style under the Old Trafford floodlights as they made it 10 straight victories in this format.
But for Australia this was their heaviest series defeat in the 40-year history of one-day internationals.
Indeed it was only ‘Pommie rain’, in a washed out clash at Edgbaston last week, that denied England the chance of a 5-0 series clean sweep which would have seen them replace Australia at the top of the 50-over world rankings.
Only George Bailey, who gave Australia a glimmer of hope with a valuable 46 not out in the last match, among the tourists could look back on this series with much pride and Clarke said: “I certainly didn’t expect to lose 4-0 that’s for sure.
“We need to play better cricket. We need to sit down as a team and have a look at our performances over the last 12 months and areas we need to get better,” he added.
“I think a lot of credit needs to go to England as well. They’ve outplayed us in all four matches, they’ve been very consistent, their bowlers have bowled with good patience and discipline and their batters have made runs.
“We haven’t done both. We didn’t have anybody make a big score as a batter, we lost a lot of early wickets throughout the series and we didn’t execute our skills as well as you need to.”
He did say that he was pleased that several youngsters got a chance in international cricket in this series, rather than in a high-profile Test match.
The last ODI of the series saw Australia make 142/7 in a rain-reduced 32 overs, which was no trouble at all for the hosts, who won by seven wickets on the Duckworth-Lewis method.
Ravi Bopara was named Man-of-theMatch for his all-round performance. Ian Bell, who was prolific with the bat, was named Man-of-the-Series. (Agencies)