It was the ‘hardest day’s cricket I have ever had in my life,’ said Tim Paine, the Australia captain, after his team conceded a one-day international record 481/6 to England and were then bowled out for 239 to go down by a whopping 242 runs.
Across the divide, Paine, leading a weakened Australia, who are without Steve Smith and David Warner, the frontmen of the batting line-up, and pace stalwarts Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, it was all slightly gloomy.
“Everything we tried didn’t work, everything they tried came off,” he said after the game. “Normally that happens for an hour or two then you get a couple of wickets. But for it to happen as long as it did, you have to take your hat off. They struck the ball as well as I have ever seen.
“That was three or four guys having an absolute day out all at the same time.”
In the absence of the pace trio, the bowling duties have been helmed by Australia’s next rung of pacers – Billy Stanlake, Jhye Richardson, Andrew Tye and Ashton Agar were the main men at Trent Bridge.
“We have a really inexperienced attack and we would be foolish not to go through it and learn from it,” pointed out Paine. “But the best place for these guys to learn is on the job. As bad as it seems and it feels right now, this can be a really big positive for us going forward, that we have gone through a day like this and the guys realise the sun comes up tomorrow and we get another crack at England in two days’ time.
