Melbourne,
\nOpener Jason Roy smashed England\u2019s highest individual score in ODIs to guide his side to a comfortable five-wicket victory against Australia in the opening<\/p>\n
match of the series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground today.<\/p>\n
The 27-year old made 180 runs, combining in a third-wicket stand of 221 with Test skipper Joe Root, who made an unbeaten 91, to make the seemingly steep<\/p>\n
305-run chase look easy and help England to their first win on the tour. Roy surpassed teammate Alex Hales\u2019s previous ODI best of 171 during his 151-ball<\/p>\n
knock as England cruised home with seven balls to spare in a morale-boosting victory, after a demoralising 4-0 loss in the Ashes Tests.<\/p>\n
After being put in to bat in the opening ODI of the five-match series, Australia opener Aaron Finch compiled his ninth hundred in the 50-over format to help the<\/p>\n
hosts to 304\/8. Australia lost David Warner for two to a fast and sharply-rising delivery from paceman Mark Wood while in-form skipper Steve Smith (23) and<\/p>\n
Travis Head also fell cheaply as the hosts were reduced to 78\/3 in the 14th over. Finch, who hit 10 fours and three sixes in his 107, and all-rounder Mitchell<\/p>\n
Marsh then gave Australia a platform to build on with a stand of 118.<\/p>\n
Finch and Marsh, who made 50, fell in quick succession and it was left to Marcus Stoinis and Tim Paine to provide Australia\u2019s late assault and give them a<\/p>\n
defendable total. Stoinis smashed 60 in 40 balls while Paine contributed a useful 27 as the pair added 80 for the sixth wicket to help the hosts get past the 300-<\/p>\n
run mark.<\/p>\n
The target proved insufficient as Roy hit 16 fours and five sixes in a belligerent knock, his fourth ODI hundred. Roy, who celebrated his century with a leap in the<\/p>\n
air, reached fifty in 32 balls and gave England a rollicking start in their chase with an opening stand of 53 with Jonny Bairstow in under five overs.<\/p>\n
England stuttered a bit after fast bowler Mitchell Starc dismissed Roy, with the touring side also losing captain Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler soon after. Root,<\/p>\n
however, remained unbeaten to take them home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Melbourne, Opener Jason Roy smashed England\u2019s highest individual score in ODIs to guide his side to a comfortable five-wicket victory against Australia in the opening match of the series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground today. The 27-year old made 180 runs, combining in a third-wicket stand of 221 with Test skipper Joe Root, who made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18708,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions\/18708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}