Ollie Robinson, Craig Overton bowl England Lions to maiden win over Australia A
Robinson takes seven wickets for the match, Overton six after Lions batsmen set course with strong first innings
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2020
Ollie Robinson celebrates the wicket of Moises Henriques • Getty Images
England Lions 428 (Lawrence 125, Sibley 116) and 20 for 1 (Crawley 10*) beat Australia A 176 (Wildermuth 50*, Carse 3-50, Robinson 3-66) and 271 (Patterson 94*, Maddinson 52, Overton 4-67, Robinson 4-81) by nine wickets
Ollie Robinson and Craig Overton bowled England Lions to their maiden victory over Australia A, a nine-wicket win in their four-day match at the MCG.
Early rain threatened to derail the Lions' march to victory, with the hosts trailing England's first-innings total by 72 overnight with five wickets in hand. Kurtis Patterson and Jack Wildermuth resumed, moving their partnership to 67 before Wildermuth fell to Overton for 37.
Patterson batted through with the tail, adding 44 more to the total to ensure the Lions needed to bat again and finishing unbeaten on 94 when the final wicket fell - that of Mitchell Swepson for three - with the Lions needing 20 runs to win.
Robinson and Overton finished with four wickets apiece for the innings, giving Robinson seven for the match and Overton six.
The English side's chase wasn't straightforward. They lost first-innings centurion Dom Sibley to Jackson Bird in the third over for three, but Zak Crawley and Keaton Jennings sealed victory five overs later.
Lions Head Coach Richard Dawson was impressed by his side's competitiveness throughout every session. "Once we got ahead of the game and posted that first-innings total, we held the ascendancy," Dawson said. "We kept it really basic, breaking things down to keep it simple and the effort within the squad was high class.
"The fast bowlers were made to work really hard, having asked the Aussies to follow on, but they've put in the work on their fitness to be able to achieve that."
It is the first time an England Lions or England 'A' team has beaten Australia A either home or away, with four losses, two draws and an abandonment in the seven previous encounters between the two sides.
The Lions will look to finish their tour of Australia unbeaten, with their final four-day match against a New South Wales XI starting on March 2. With Sibley, Crawley, Jennings and Dom Bess departing to join the England team for a two-Test tour of Sri Lanka, the match in Wollongong will give several players in the squad the chance to gain match experience.
