Strauss left frustrated by bad day at the office

England had looked in complete control of the match after their seamers reduced the hosts to 142 for eight batting first on a tricky Bellerive Oval wicket.

But from then on England faltered, as Shaun Marsh combined with Doug Bollinger in an Australian record stand of 88 for the ninth wicket on his way to a match-winning 110 – the second one-day century of his career.

While Australia still only managed 230, England never truly threatened in their pursuit as they lost wickets at regular intervals, with Bollinger taking four for 28, to be bowled out for 184 in 45 overs.

The loss followed England’s six-wicket opening-match defeat in Melbourne, when they failed to defend 294, and leaves them 2-0 down in the sevenmatch series.

‘‘It was a very poor day, there’s no doubt about it,’’ Strauss said.

‘‘The seam bowlers did a fantastic job and we were in a great position with them eight down, but that partnership between Marsh and Bollinger gave them some very important momentum heading into their bowling stint and it was a poor performance with the bat.

‘‘When you are chasing that score you need one guy to get 80-odd and none of us did that.

There we lots of 20s and 30s, too many early wickets and ultimately it wasn’t good.’’ England’s chase began terribly, with Matt Prior making a duck on his return before Bollinger removed Strauss and Kevin Pietersen with consecutive balls to leave the tourists on 36 for three.

Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott seemed to quell the initial threat with a 47-run stand, but crucially both batsmen were out to catches in the inner ring after making 32 apiece.

‘‘A lot of us made poor decisions today. There were quite a few soft dismissals,’’ Strauss added.

‘‘The one thing I’d say is that we aren’t in the business of handing out huge recriminations to our batsmen.

‘‘We want to see them play positively, that’s the most important thing for us.

‘‘It’s worked well for us in the past and the last thing we want to see is batsmen going into their shells.

‘‘In that sense it won’t be all doom and gloom, we just have to play smart cricket and we didn’t do enough of that today.’’ Strauss denied that his side were struggling to lift themselves for the protracted series on the back of their Ashes success.

‘‘I don’t think so.

“It was just one of those poor days on a slow wicket which forces you to either play aggressively or you are going to build up a lot of dot balls,’’ he added.

‘‘We are going to have to sit down and chat through it and make sure we don’t make those mistakes again.’’ England twice allowed Australia to regain their composure with the bat after Strauss’ decision to send them in, following morning rain, was immediately vindicated as the hosts slumped to 33 for four.

But after picking only three front-line seamers, Strauss was then forced to turn to Jonathan Trott’s part-timers alongside the reduced threat of spinners Michael Yardy and James Tredwell during the middle overs.

That set the stage for Marsh, who was only calledup for the injured Mike Hussey, to join Cameron White in a 100-run stand.

And while Australia then collapsed again to lose four for nine, the lack of extra firepower allowed Bollinger to hit 30, after his previous highest score in 27 one-dayers was just three, and partner Marsh en route to his decisive century.

‘‘In hindsight we should probably have got the fourth seamer in our side, that was a mistake,’’ Strauss added.

‘‘The biggest regret is that Doug Bollinger got 30 and put on all those runs with Marsh.

‘‘When you lose you have to learn from the mistakes and make sure you don’t repeat them, which is what we’ll do.’’ Strauss also conceded Marsh’s century, which came off just 101 balls to belie the problems both sets of batsmen had with scoring quickly, was the game-changing innings.

‘‘He played very well. He had a nice mix of getting ones and hitting boundaries,’’ he added.

‘‘He’s a player in good form and we’ll have to look at how we could have done things differently.’’ Australia captain Michel Clarke praised the performance of Western Australian Marsh, who is only due to play in the next two games having been drafted in to replace Hussey after he underwent hamstring surgery following the first game.

Marsh was also overlooked for next month’s World Cup, but Clarke admitted he would love to keep him in the side and hinted he would bat further up the order in tomorrow’s third game in Sydney.

‘‘If he bats like that he can stay as long as he likes,’’ he said.

‘‘It’s unlikely he’ll be batting at number six in the next few games, especially when he’s hitting the ball as sweetly as he is.

‘‘We were in a lot of trouble, wickets kept falling around him, but Shaun showed his class and what an opportunity does.

‘‘He’s come into this game in good form, scoring runs for WA, and it’s as good an innings as I’ve seen, under pressure.

‘‘It won us the game tonight.’’

Scoreboard

Australia v England At Hobart

Australia S R Watson b Shahzad ........................ 5

B J Haddin b Shahzad ......................... 5

M J Clarke c Bell b Bresnan ..................10

C L White c & b Yardy ..........................45

D J Hussey c Strauss b Tremlett ........... 8

S E Marsh c Bell b Tremlett .................110

S P Smith b Shahzad ........................... 0

N M Hauritz c Trott b Bresnan ............... 2

B Lee b Yardy .................... 0

D E Bollinger c Shahzad b Tremlett ......30

S W Tait not out ................ 0

Extras (lb7 w8 pens 0).................15

Total (48.2 overs) ...................230

Fall: 1-6 2-15 3-21 4-33 5-133 6-136 7-140 8-142 9-230

Bowling: Shahzad 10-1-43-3. Tremlett 9.2- 0-22-3. Bresnan 9-1-37-2. Trott 3-0-16-0.

Tredwell 8-0-44-0. Yardy 9-1-61-2.

England

A J Strauss lbw b Bollinger ...................19

M J Prior c Watson b Lee ...................... 0

I J Trott c Hussey b Smith .....................32

K P Pietersen b Bollinger ..................... 0

I R Bell c Smith b Lee ........................32

E J Morgan c Tait b Watson ..................21

M H Yardy run out ............................22

T T Bresnan c Watson b Bollinger .........19

J C Tredwell lbw b Bollinger ..................16

A Shahzad run out ........................... 2

C T Tremlett not out ......................... 1

Extras (lb6 w13 nb1 pens 0)........20

Total (45 overs) ......................184

Fall: 1-12 2-36 3-36 4-83 5-96 6-140 7-147 8-178 9-180

Bowling: Lee 9-0-39-2. Tait 5.5-0-30-0.

Bollinger 9-0-28-4. Watson 9-0-32-1. Hauritz 8-0-36-0. Smith 2-0-5-1. Clarke 0.1-0- 0-0. Hussey 2-0-8-0.

Australia beat England by 46 runs.