Joe Root stars with bat and ball to hand England 2-0 series lead with four-wicket win over Australia

Australia’s 270 for nine looked inadequate at halfway and so it proved

Joe Root celebrates taking the wicket of Steve Smith (Getty Images)

In the end it was Mitchell Starc against England. Whereas in the Ashes he had Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood to shoulder the pace burden, here he fought a lone and ultimately losing battle.

Cummins was rested from this game and Hazlewood, who was rested from the first match at Melbourne, was ill.

Australia’s 270 for nine looked inadequate at halfway and so it proved. Starc got Jason Roy for two – 178 fewer than he made at the MCG – in the first over but was then clobbered by Jonny Bairstow and Alex Hales.

Hales made his first fifty for England since last June and his first one-day half-century against Australia. Bairstow simply reaffirmed his form and his desire to remain a part of this attack-minded one-day team. The pair went to half-centuries in successive balls and Starc left the attack.

It was left to the debutant Jhye Richardson, a right-armer who bowls as fast as Starc, to uproot Hales and Bairstow in the space of seven balls. Eoin Morgan emerged, looked shaky as he often does early in his innings and Starc reappeared, like a predator stalking the oceans, to hurry the England captain into chopping on to his stumps.

As Jos Buttler and Joe Root had the game in their hands, Starc returned again for one last crack. Buttler nicked behind and four balls later Moeen Ali had no answer to an 88mph yorker. He had everyone’s sympathy.

There was still work to be done and Chris Woakes produced an innings of character and flair to partner Root towards the target. Earlier Woakes had effected two run-outs one with some neat footballing skills.

This was the first one-day international England had won at the Gabba, Australia’s much-vaunted fortress, since 1999 and now they are 2-0 up in this series with three to play.

Mitchell Starc toiled in the Melbourne heat (England cricket)

Australia are struggling for ideas and for personnel in this form of the game while England are hot. The Ben Stokes sideshow is proving less of a distraction than an incentive for the current incumbents not to give the selectors a reason to drop them when the errant all-rounder does finally return.

England got their tactics spot on while Australia did not. They left out leg-spinner Adam Zampa while Eoin Morgan chucked the ball to Joe Root, whose seven overs went for 31 and included the wicket of his Ashes nemesis Steve Smith.

The one concern from Melbourne was the lack of bowling options for England in the absence of Ben Stokes. Root’s canny, nerveless off-spin mitigated that worry. He also got through his overs so quickly that he added to the concern for Australia that they were being hemmed in.

Firing the ball in with a roundish arm, Root had Smith lbw for 18. Smith reviewed, following discussion with Finch, but it always looked a futile call. The ball was hitting the top of leg stump.

Head’s dismissal was a case of putting a batsman out of his misery. The left-hander has been handed the crucial No4 slot but it was a hitter rather than a nurdler that Australia needed and seven from 18 balls was a meagre return. His dismissal was appropriately tame, a simple return catch to Root.

Finch remained immoveable and indispensable for Australia. When he late cut Root for four in the 24th it was Australia’s first boundary for 55 balls.

His were the memorable shots: a step-away cut off Root and a ferociously, classical sweep off Rashid that bisected the leg-side boundary riders.

But just as in Melbourne, Mitch Marsh and Finch got out in quick succession and Australia’s innings hit the buffers.