Brisbane, Jan 19 (IANS) Following their four-wicket win in the second One-Day International (ODI) here on Friday, England captain Eoin Morgan has warned Australia that his team has the ability to perform even better.

England restricted Australia to 270/9 before chasing down the target with more than five overs to spare.

If England can win the third ODI at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Sunday, they will win the five-match series. It will be the first ODI series win by England in Australia since 2007.

“I’d like to think we can get better but today we were great. It was far from our best performance with the bat and I suppose that’s exciting in a way. Hopefully our best is coming at Sydney. We have a level of trust in the group that someone will put their hand up and do it for us,” Morgan was quoted as saying by the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) official website after the match.

Morgan praised the England bowlers and hoped that they will be able to continue in the same vein over the rest of the series.

“I thought our bowlers were exceptional, especially on a really hot day. They put pressure on the Australia batsmen,” he said.

Meanwhile, Australia captain Steve Smith admitted that the hosts need to pull up their socks if they expect to make a strong comeback in the series.

Smith felt that poor batting by the Australian lower order proved to be costly in the end.

“Unfortunately, we’re not playing good enough ODI cricket at the moment. We were in a good position at 209/3 but we didn’t score enough at the back-end,” he said.

“We just lost a couple of wickets in a row and we just couldn’t get the power at the back-end. Our in-batters need to bat for longer,” he added.

–IANS
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