England maintained their unbeaten run in the ICC men’s T20 World Cup by beating arch-rivals Australia by 8 wickets at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, on Saturday night. It was an all-round performance from England that saw a solid side like Australia wet behind the ears.

Australia, batting first, lost three big wickets – Steve Smith, David Warner and Glenn Maxwell – in the powerplay. From there, they could not get the momentum that they were looking for.

“After losing a few wickets in the powerplay, we had to hang in there and get to a total we thought would be defendable. They bowled well and put us on the back foot early. You had to bowl them out with that kind of total, but Jos Buttler played a hell of an innings and put the pressure on us,” Australia captain Aaron Finch said during the post-match presentation.

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“And it’s just one of those nights where we got off to a poor start and it kept compounding unfortunately. We’ve got a couple of days to recharge now, give the guys some much-needed rest and take on Bangladesh next,” Finch added.

For England, captain Eoin Morgan was really happy with his team’s performance and said that they adapted to the conditions well and it yielded them positive results.

“…challenge first is always adapting to the conditions away from home and we did that really in the first two games and then again today, the big test against a really strong Australian side,” Morgan said during the post-match presentation.

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“We sort of held up pretty well right from the beginning, holding our nerve and creating opportunities with the ball and then continuing to be relentless with the lengths we want to bowl. We are in good form with the bat. Jason last game and Jos today. We treat everybody with same amount of respect,” the English captain said.