England carried on with their dominant performance with the ball against arch-rivals England and left them reeling at 21-4 at the start of the seven-over mark.
Chris Woakes started the slide with the wicket of David Warner and followed it up with a big wicket of Glenn Maxwell. In between his two overs, Woakes also plucked a one-handed catch to send Steve Smith back to the pavilion off the bowling of Chris Jordan.
Staying aware of the challenge of bowling Moeen Ali in the powerplay, which has been Eoin Morgan’s tactic this tournament, he flipped the spin bowling duty to Adil Rashid. He started off decently and came back to pick up the dangerman Marcus Stoinis after flummoxing him with a googly.
England fielded an unchanged side in the game while Australia made a brave call of bolstering their spin-bowling department at the expense of Mitchell Marsh, who was favourite to occupy the number three position in the tournament.
At the end of the 12th over, half the Australian team was back in the pavilion with Liam Livingstone removing Matthew Wade at the team score of 51-5. Now they are left with only the duo of skipper Aaron Finch and Ashton Agar if they have to post a decent and fighting total on a fresh looking pitch at the Dubai International Stadium. No count that Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins can use the long handle too, but the conditions in Dubai are trying.