🏏Champions Trophy 2025: Aus vs Eng, Match-4, Group B🏏

🏏Champions Trophy 2025: Australia vs England, 4th Match, Group B 🏏

Given Australia and England were the winners of the last two ICC ODI events, they should be amongst the favourites this time. However, for different reasons, both these teams enter the 2025 Champions Trophy with little to no momentum. Australia suffered two crushing defeats over the last week or so in Sri Lanka that would dent any side's confidence. And if that side is already depleted with a few first-choice players missing from the tournament, there is certainly a cause for concern.

Australia have lost their last four games in the format and failed to go past 200 in any of those. That batting lineup is short on confidence and they would be glad they are kickoff their campaign at a venue that has witnessed 300-plus scores recently. While the batting unit at least contains the likes of Travis Head, stand-in skipper Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Glenn Maxwell, it's the bowling unit that will come under the scanner tomorrow and for the rest of the tournament. Since the 2016 T20 World Cup, Australia will be entering an ICC event for the first time without their first-choice pace bowling trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. While the Aussies have won this tournament twice, recent history hasn't been kind as they failed to win even a single game in the last two editions.

At least the current world champions have injury issues to contend with. That is however not the case with England. Like Australia, their batting unit will also be glad to be playing on placid surfaces in Pakistan following the recent drubbing in India. Not to forget, England's title defence didn't go according to plan in the 2023 ODI World Cup. Even though Brendon McCullum has taken over the reins of the white-ball side only recently, he would come under the scanner alongside Jos Buttler if England endured another early exit.

England would also want to join Australia and the other elite teams as the only ones to have won all three major ICC white-ball tournaments with the Champions Trophy being the only piece of silverware that's eluding them. In order to go that far, nothing like making an early statement, especially against your arch-rivals considering the loser's chances of progressing will be dented in a short tournament such as this one.

Big picture: Both teams coming off series defeats

Would you believe it, not only have Australia and England been drawn in the same group at a global tournament, but their Champions Trophy returns also start against one another. Universe (ICC), you've done it again! And yet, amid such predictable money-grabbing comes a bit of shameful excitement. Even without mentioning the "A" word, these are two bitter rivals in unique states. A champion Australia side shorn of some of those champions, and an England side increasingly desperate to rediscover former glory.

The lack of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood gives the ODI World Cup holders a less intimidating feel, and subsequently shifts the onus on a batting line-up led by Travis Head's brand of "Ah, we'll have a go". Quite how that responsibility will manifest itself to what is more or less an established group of batters remains to be seen particularly as captain Steven Smith, standing in for Cummins and the injured Mitchell Marsh, who would have likely deputised, weighs up the right combinations for his top seven.

That Australia can call upon Nathan Ellis, Sean Abbott, Spencer Johnson and Ben Dwarshius to fill big bowling boots reflects the enviable depth of Australian cricket, even if those bowlers' most notable successes - Abbott aside - have come exclusively in T20s. Extrapolating that to 50-over cricket will be its own challenge. Australia are not putting much stock in the fact they arrive off the back of a 2-0 ODI series loss against Sri Lanka. The same could be said of England, even if their 3-0 defeat to India elicited far more anger and ridicule.

Not training enough and golfing too much were the main takeaways outside a group that actually seems in good spirits considering they have now lost all four ODI series since the 2023 World Cup. To be expected, of course, as negative vibes have no place in Brendon McCullum's house.

In keeping, England's break to the UAE came with a view of shedding the baggage from a travel-and defeat-heavy month in India, with added benefit of escaping the press hysteria around focusing on the wrong kind of white ball. But McCullum's task requires a more hands-on and technically focused approach with a group which continues to look uneasy with bat and ball in this format.

How much of that McCullum can change in such a short space of time - he has only been in charge of the limited-overs set-up for a month - will be determined over the coming weeks. Right now, it probably helps to have a familiar foe on the horizon to drum up a little extra heart and vigour.

As for Jos Buttler, the next fortnight will go some way to determining whether he sticks with the captaincy. A promise to smile more at the start of the year felt optimistic at the time, and has proved as much. But after missing all of England's ODIs in 2024, he will be better for the three ticked off earlier at the start of February.

Of those Buttler missed last year due to a calf injury was the five-match series against Australia at the end of the home summer, which ensures greater familiarity at international level between the players, even if many of them have rubbed shoulders as team-mates or opponents at domestic level.

Australia, made up of a few of the alternates substituted into their Champions Trophy squad, triumphed 3-2 on that occasion, having been 2-0 up before taking their foot off the gas. All five results were blowouts of one kind or another. And just as it was for India, Australia's spinners made hay against England's batters, with Adam Zampa doing the brunt of the damage, supplemented by handy contributions from Glenn Maxwell, Marnus Labuschagne and Head.

When: Australia vs England, February 22, 2025, 2:30 PM IST

Where: Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore

What to expect: Both these sides will be hoping that Lahore is full of runs, like it was in the just-concluded tri-series. Weather is expected to be warm.

Form guide

(last five completed matches, most recent first)

Australia: LLLLW

England: LLLLW

Team News

Australia

The makeup of Australia's bowling attack is one to watch for. Adam Zampa is their most experienced campaigner in that bowling group and he will have to lead from the front.

Given the absences, Australia's pace attack pretty much picks itself. Allrounder Aaron Hardie, the immediate beneficiary of Marcus Stoinis' retirement from the 50-over format on the eve of the tournament, could sit out for Labuschagne to play as an extra batter. Dwarshius' left-arm/left-hand option may see him pip Abbott to the bowling allrounder slot.

Team News

England announced their XI two days out from the match - early by their unusually prompt standards - with Jamie Smith not just back fit from a calf injury, but also batting at No. 3 while also playing as wicketkeeper. It is not quite a nuclear option, but it does involve pushing Joe Root to No. 4 and taking the gloves from Phil Salt, who kept throughout the ODIs in India. With just four frontline bowling options, Root and Liam Livingstone must join forces effectively to provide a serviceable fifth. The pace of Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, playing his first 50-over tournament since his Super Over heroics in 2019's World Cup final, will present Australia's starkest challenge.

England by the looks of it will continue with their attacking brand of cricket especially after skipper Jos Buttler confirmed Jamie Smith's promotion to No.3 is a 'free hit'. Joe Root moving one spot below will also solidify that middle order that came under the pump in India.

Pitch and conditions

ODI pitches at the Gaddafi Stadium are almost always flat belters. The venue hosted two matches in the recent tri-series, with New Zealand posting 330 for 6 to beat Pakistan, and then chasing down 305 with six wickets and eight balls to spare. Lahore is expected to be slightly cooler than it was for the tri-series, partly because of rain this week, which ended up hampering England's preparations on Thursday. Dew is very rarely a factor at this time of year.

Stats and trivia

Australia and England have a tight head-to-head record in the Champions Trophy, with England ahead just by a 3-2 margin.

Maxwell and Buttler are the only members available from the two teams' squads from the 2013 edition of the tournament.

Archer is two wickets away from 50 in the ODIs.

Jamie Smith has only previously batted at No. 3 once in 18 List A innings - for Surrey against Kent in 2019.

What they said

"He's obviously got the game technically and tactically, but I think the head on his shoulders seems to be one of the biggest strengths. Nothing seems to faze him too much. I think you could ask him to bat anywhere in the line-up and it wouldn't phase him." - Jos Buttler on Jamie Smith's promotion

Quotes

"I'm going to have my work cut out for me with some of that fast bowling England have got. They're high quality, highly skilled and high pace. I've got to make sure I start well, earn the right, and see where the game takes us. I'm just worried about making sure I start well for the team."

Australia vice-captain Travis Head on challenge posed by England's quicks

"He's been fit and firing now for 18 months or so since being out of the game for a while. He's really excited to put together that kind of length of time back on the field, and he's obviously a superstar of the game for us. He is someone, as a captain, you always know you can turn to and throw the ball. He's obviously going to be really looking forward to the game tomorrow."

Jofra Archer is ready and raring to go, says Jos Buttler