Lauren Bell urges her side to focus on the next ODI saying ‘We’re going to imagine it’s nil-nil’ again after a loss in game 1.
Lauren Bell, the England seamer who was economical in taking 1 for 25 in her nine overs, believed her team deserved “a lot of credit” for making Australia’s run chase a little harder
After putting down Ellyse Perry off Lauren Filer’s bowling, Alice Capsey was likely relieved to see Bell dismiss the all-rounder shortly after. However, it was hard to measure Sophie Ecclestone’s strange gaffe when Gardner was on 31 and Australia needed 22 more runs with six wickets down.
“We got 200 on a pitch that I think the par score batting first was about 250, so putting in an effort to almost defend that was, I think you can take a lot of confidence from it,” an upbeat Bell said. “There are a few things that we could definitely work on moving forward. Obviously Australia caught very well and we dropped a few in at important moments. Moving forward, there’s a few places we can work on and really focus on the next game, but I think as a whole we can take a fair amount of confidence from the game.”
With the early dismissal of Phoebe Litchfield for just four runs, Filer got England’s defence off to a strong start. He then caught Annabel Sutherland, an all-rounder in form, in the deep to finish the game with two for fifty-eight from eight overs. Ecclestone finished with 2 for 38 after taking the crucial wickets of Beth Mooney and Tahlia McGrath. However, if England wants to avoid falling behind four points in Tuesday’s second ODI at Junction Oval, they will need to perform better overall.
“We’re one game into a pretty long series and we’re two-nil down, but we’re going to have to start the next game and imagine it’s nil-nil and go again,” Bell said. That is the beauty of these series. We can come back and we’re just going to have to reset and go with our plan and just go again.
“We’ll sit down as a team and review. Our batting group will get together and it will obviously be different conditions over in Melbourne, so we’ll have to adjust to them. But we’ll get together as a group and work out the little bits we can tidy up and hopefully put on a better performance.”