Eoin Morgan lauded Ian Bell for his sublime 141, which made him England’s top one-day international run-maker, but lamented that the tourists could post only a “par score”.
Excellent reverse-swing bowling at the death from Mitchell Starc in particular saw England slip from 253 for two in the 42nd over just before Bell was out to 303 for eight from their 50 overs.
An unbeaten hundred from stand-in skipper Steven Smith then guided the hosts to a nervy victory, completed by three wickets with a ball to spare.
Smith was somewhat surprisingly man of the match, although Bell could at least reflect of passing Paul Collingwood as England’s most prolific ODI scorer.
Bell’s captain Morgan, speaking exclusively to ecb.co.uk, said:“Ian Bell’s innings for one thing really set us up at the top of the order. He showed his experience and class again, and shows where he’s at personally.
“I think his standard’s really high for so early in the tour, and again we based our innings round him and tried to set it up for the last 10 but Australia bowled a pretty good last 10 overs.
“So the first 40 were pretty good and the skill level was pretty high but I’ve not seen Australia bowl like that in the last 10 overs for a long time.”
Morgan admitted that England had fallen short of setting Australia a truly testing target at Hobart’s Bellerive Oval.
“I think 300 was a par score,” he added.
“Obviously we had higher expectations to get 340-plus and I think if we had found a way to negotiate the swing bowling and the variations that we had, we might have got closer.”
The moment @Ian_Bell celebrated his fourth ODI century for England #AusvEng#triseriespic.twitter.com/tlXb4qNaCU
— England Cricket (@ECB_cricket) January 23, 2015
With Smith going towards three figures, Australia looked like recording a fairly comfortable win.
Yet England kept in the game, Chris Woakes ousting the dangerous Brad Haddin and James Taylor running out Moises Henriques in the closing overs, before the hosts earned a tense victory.
“To take it that deep in the innings the guys did really well given we only got up to a par score,” Morgan reflected.
“So credit to the guys on that behalf. It would have taken something very special to get us across the line, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“We got the ball reverse-swinging for a little bit of a period but not for long enough and Australia manage to fight their way through that.”