After England had scrambled their way through the early part of the tour and escaped with the family silver in Brisbane, someone referred to the side as Alec Stewart's Invincibles. Earlier this week however, as the side plummeted to another defeat in an Ashes series, that was quickly amended to the Inevitables. As the record in dead rubbers and festival games suggests, England are pretty nifty at winning when it does not really matter and losing when it does.
Yesterday, at Manuka Oval in Canberra, they did it again, beating the Australian Prime Minister's Select XI by 19 runs. It was a pretty enough game in a tree-lined setting to match, although there were moments when an upset looked on the cards. Mark Butcher, Ben Hollioake, Graeme Hick and John Crawley all found themselves back in the pavilion inside seven overs with 26 on the board, and later Daniel Marsh caned 74 from 72 balls in a last-ditch pursuit of victory.
But England had the best of the pitch and recovered well enough to 225 for eight thanks to Stewart (34), Nasser Hussain (41) and Warren Hegg (47).
England then took early wickets to put the PM's team under pressure and generally kept things under control. Alan Mullally took the first two wickets without conceding a run, Angus Fraser and Dominic Cork bowled steadfastly and Hick cashed in at the finish.
A win is a win is a win, but for the most part it was a gentle sideshow from the main tour. Even Taylor himself had a bowl at the end of the England innings. It was all calm before the final storm, though. The side flew to Hobart earlier this morning, and tomorrow will face the Australian XI - effectively their second team - at Bellerive Oval, before travelling to Melbourne and Sydney for the final two back-to-back Tests over Christmas and New Year. The Ashes may have gone but this promises to be the toughest three weeks of the tour.
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