Thanks to Northants making it to finals day, an England Lions XI was
selected to take on Australia in a 2 day game in Northampton. Early
morning rain delayed the start for an hour. The Lions won the toss and
elected to bat first, with Alex Lees and Luke Wells opening. Wells soon
fell for 10, edging to Wade off James Faulkner for 10, 17-1. Moeen Ali
then came along and the pair played nicely, the main unusual sight from
the morning session was Dave Warner bowling seam up, though with limited
success. Nathan Lyon picked up the other two wickets to fall before
lunch, Alex Lees caught by Shane Watson at slip for 33 and captain Eoin
Morgan also caught Watson for 5.
After lunch, Moeen Ali completed a
comfy 85 ball 50 and progressed onto 61 before giving Steve Smith an
easy catch off Mitchell Starc, 164-4. Gary Ballance's 8th four brought
up his 50 shorty after, from 90 balls. Australia were never out of the
day for long, as Ben Stokes (19) was the third victim to the Lyon-Watson
slip catching combination, 195-5. Ballance carried on, and with Jos
Buttler blocking up one end on the fairly slow pitch, he moved fairly
untroubled into the 90s. Buttler then fell for 7 to Steve Smith, before
Ballance carted the 4th ball of his next over for six over midwicket to
go to his century from 153 balls. He then tried to repeat the dose next
ball and was LBW for 104, the highlight of an otherwise slow day.
The Lions finished the day on 269-7 from 77 overs, a pretty decent showing on a slow pitch against a good attack.
