England batsmen enjoy warm-up win

England XI 6 for 364 (Bopara 56*, Root 56, Taylor 55, Bell 51, Ali 50) beat ACT Invitational XI 148 (Condon 36, Tredwell 3-11) by 216 runs
Scorecard

England's batsmen enjoyed a warm-up in Canberra on Monday, with five batsmen scoring half-centuries in a comprehensive win over an ACT Invitational XI. Ravi Bopara, Joe Root, James Taylor, Ian Bell and Moeen Ali all made it to fifty in England's total of 6 for 364, before James Tredwell collected three wickets as the local side was skittled for 148.

A more challenging practice match should await England on Wednesday against the Prime Minister's XI, ahead of Friday's tri-series opener against Australia in Sydney. But on Monday, a largely amateur ACT team featuring a couple of New South Wales state batsmen struggled to put up much of a fight, losing by 216 runs.

Bell and Ali put on 76 for the opening wicket before Ali's entertaining 50 from 38 balls ended with a stumping off the left-arm spinner Shane Devoy. Bell made 51 having been put down at point on 4, Taylor scored 55 at first drop and Root managed 56, before Bopara smashed an unbeaten 56 from 27 balls late in the innings. Chris Woakes finished unbeaten on 45 from 27.

New ODI captain Eoin Morgan was the only one of the top six who failed to pass fifty, bowled for 32 when he tried to reverse sweep Devoy. But 6 for 364 was always likely to be too tall a task for the ACT outfit, and only three of their specialist batsmen reached double figures - Matthew Condon (36), New South Wales opener Scott Henry (26) and Andrew Harriott (27).

Chris Jordan leaked 34 runs from his four overs but the rest of the bowlers were reasonably economical, with Tredwell picking up 3 for 11 and Stuart Broad and Ali two each. Tredwell said he enjoyed bowling in the Canberra conditions but the main aim was to ensure as many of the England players as possible had some game-time.

"Sometimes it can be lovely to bowl here, clearly it was quite nice today," Tredwell said. "A bit of turn and bounce can be good.You just want to get in a position where you can bowl attackingly and that was the key here. I got a couple of early wickets and had to be dragged out of the attack, I was ruining the game.

"Clearly we wanted to get everyone a decent run out and I had to be the one who gave way a bit. It's one of those things. I think I've been bowling pretty well of late and I want to carry it on game to game in this tour.

"Playing these games of 13 or 14 a side you want get everyone a good go and clearly we've done that. Seven or eight of the batters got good time in the middle, there were five fifties and all the bowlers got a few overs under their belt so it's a good way to start the tour."