SOUTHAMPTON: Australia have declared they will unleash a bouncer barrage on in-form England batsman Moeen Ali in the One-day International series opener here at Ageas Bowl on Thursday night.

Ali was a consistent lower order contributor in England’s Ashes triumph and once moved up to his favoured position at the top for Monday’s Twenty20 International, the thrilling left-hander cut loose with a brilliant unbeaten 46-ball 72.

However, during the Lord’s Ashes Test, Australia were convinced they discovered Ali’s Achilles heel, after Mitchell Johnson exposed him with a brutal spell of short-pitched bowling.

Mitchell Starc, the world’s No.1 white ball bowler, didn’t mince words when outlining his plan for Ali and the rest of the England top order.

“Definitely I reckon we can probably bowl a lot more bouncers than we did in that Twenty20 game. Even in that ODI game against Ireland we probably didn’t bowl enough either,” Starc said.

“The boundaries here in Southampton are quite large, so without having that straight hit … and with the square boundaries back even further, those bouncers for both teams are probably going to come into play.”

After the Test at Lord’s, Starc implored Ali to “watch the tape back” at the meekness of his second innings dismissal, after the England batsman had accused Johnson of bowling only one good innings out of four this series.

However, it’s now England who hold the ascendancy and have every reason to go into the ODI series with their tails up.

Australia thrashed Eoin Morgan’s side in the World Cup opener – as well as the preceding one-day series in the summer, but Starc acknowledged England are now a different side.

“Obviously that series they had with New Zealand prior to the Ashes has probably kick-started their summer over here with the way they’ve played their cricket and the different make-up of their team,” said Starc.

“They’re playing good cricket. Before the Ashes … there was some aggressive cricket and it was a good series between England and New Zealand. We expect them to be pretty similar in the way they go about their cricket against us.”

Squads (probable):

ENGLAND: Alex Hales, Jason Roy, Moeen Ali, Eoin Morgan (captain), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Sam Billings, Adil Rashid, David Willey, Liam Plunkett, Steven Finn.

AUSTRALIA: David Warner, Joe Burns, Steve Smith (captain), George Bailey, Glenn Maxwell, Shane Watson, Mitchell Marsh, Matt Wade, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Coulter-Nile.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2015

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