What a start! The Aussies appeal off the first ball as Roy ambles down and plays across his front pad to one going high down leg. And he’s nailed a drive to point second ball! Smith takes the catch and he’s gone for nothing…
Right, time to get going… Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow on the way out for England, with Josh Hazlewood (Starc is rested) to get the Aussies started.
Adelaide Oval is a magnificent ground but the crowd, at least at this stage, does not look magnificent. As the anthems are wheeled away by a band with some fancy looking electric string instruments, there’s barely anyone listening.
Test Match Special are celebrating Australia Day by wearing shirts in honour of the least Australian man I know, Dan Norcross. He’s convinced that it always rains there. It did rain during every single Ashes Test!
Test Match Special
(@bbctms)As well as it being Australia Day, in the TMS box it’s ‘Dress like @norcrosscricket Day’!#AUSvENG#bbccricket pic.twitter.com/Vjh831yoRy
Morning Stuie! Seems likely…
Stuie Neale
(@MrNeale92)@willis_macp morning will
Hope ur well, 4-0 i hope!
You can contact me! Do that in these two ways:
Up goes the coin and it comes down in Steve Smith’s favour! He chooses to bowl first! Eoin Morgan says he would have done the same because it’s a, and I quote, “really well put together wicket”. He probably doesn’t really care.
Smith says Aaron Finch is out of the best next two games but will be back for the T20s next month. Travis Head will open with Dave Warner, and Mitchell Starc is rested. AJ Tye gets a run in his place.
For England, it’s Tom Curran, not David Willey, in for Liam Plunkett. That is a bit more middle-overs-like-for-like I reckon. It’s just Curran’s second ODI, and England have resisted the temptation for further change.
Australia: Warner, Head, White, Smith (c), Marsh, Stoinis, Paine (wk), Cummins, Tye, Zampa, Hazlewood.
England: Roy, Bairstow, Hales, Root, Morgan (c), Buttler (wk), Moeen, Woakes, Rashid, Curran, Wood.
Hello! Greetings one and all, wherever you are in the world. It’s Australia Day and cricket in Adelaide on Australia Day is a thing – and so here we are! Australia against whitewash-hunting England, which really doesn’t sound right.
Australia have lost 10 of their last 11, appear to have no idea what their best XI is, and no obvious gameplan. They score too slowly, but have called up Glenn Maxwell for the injured Aaron Finch (by far their best batsman so far this series). The mail is that Maxwell won’t play and that Travis Head will open the batting on his home ground – he went bananas there on Australia Day last year.
England need to make at least one change, because Liam Plunkett is out of the series with a hammie problem. David Willey is the likeliest to come in; I wonder at what stage of the series England might consider another tweak or two – your Sam Billings, your Dawid Malans, that sort of thing. They probably won’t given their desperation for a whitewash.
In the last game, in Sydney, Jos Buttler scored what is generally considered to be the best of his five ODI centuries. It was also his slowest and that it was his best is outrageous given the quality and speed of:
What a cricketer.
Anyway, all the news from the toss very shortly. Speak then.