By Dave Buxton
December 13 2002

Essex and England captain Nasser Hussain scored 52 for England against Australia today in the first match of the VB Series in Sydney, but still once again saw his team slip to a 7 wicket defeat.

Nass Runs In Vain

Nass won the toss and decided to bat first and saw his side start off superbly with some blazing shots from Marcus Trescothick (60) and former Essex man Nick Knight (a brilliant 111 Not Out), as together they notched up 101 for the first wicket inside 17 overs, before Tresco went.

That brought in our Ronnie Irani at number 3. Though unfortunately Ronnie faced just 3 balls before being a bit harshly given out lbw to Shane Warne for a duck. Ronnie was a fair way down the track even though the ball was shown to go on to hit the stumps, the benefit is normally given to the batsman.

That brought in Nass and he hit his 52 from 81 balls with 1 four and a huge six into the crowd over long-on. He added 102 with Knight, before he tried to hit Lehmann out of the ground and was only successful in spooning a chance to Gillespie at long-off. England were at this stage well set at 205-3.

England then fell away again after that to just 251-8 from their 50 overs, though still a very defendable target once would think.

But messers Gilchrist and Hayden smashed it to all parts to give the Aussies a better start then we had.

But cometh the hour, cometh Ronnie and he almost straight away dismissed Gilchrist for 53 (101-1 from 13.5 overs) as he lofted a drive across the line to give Owais Shah a simple catch on the deep mid-wicket boundary.

Despite this, Ronnie only bowled 5 overs 1-33 and didn't even come back into the attack at a later stage. A decision that baffled a few, as well as some of the unusual field placings by Nass.

Ronnie did feature though in taking a good low catch at slip to help Blackwell get rid of Ricky Ponting, but the Aussies after that cruised home at 252-3 with 7 wickets and 5 overs to spare.

So another defeat although a decent match for the Essex player's again. Just a couple of days until the next match, also against Australia.

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Date: 13/12/02

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