England
Reuters

England will take on Australia XI in the second of the three tour games at Hobart scheduled before the Ashes which commences on 21 November.

Where to Watch Live

Play is set to start at 11:30pm GMT on 5,6 and 7 November. Live coverage will be available on Sky Sports 2 and Sky Sports 2 HD.

Overview

The first tour game ended in an innocuous draw but England got a good run around where their batsmen proved that they are ready to take on the Australian challenge. However, the management will be concerned by their failure to put in a proper performance with the ball. England allowed the Western Australia Chairman's XI to score 451 runs in the first innings, with James Anderson, Steven Finn and Chris Tremlett failing to make an impact.

They tried to turn things around with the bat, with the top order firing on all cylinders. However, after the initial brilliance of Michael Carberry (78), Jonathan Trott (113) and Ian Bell (115), the batsmen lower down the order failed to cross the 20 run mark and the England innings succumbed to a score of 391. The Australian XI took reins of the second innings from where they finished in the first, piling up 168 runs for the loss of five wickets. The result does not auger well for their England's test up ahead, with many of the first team regulars set to come back into the Australian side following their tour of India.

England need to put in a better performance in the upcoming warm up game to gain confidence as they look to retain the Ashes after their brilliant victory on home soil earlier this year. The Hobart pitch is expected to assist the bowlers and will provide a sterner test to the batsmen who have had an easy day out at Perth. Ian Bell is happy to be playing in different conditions and wants to acclimatize himself with everything that Australia have to offer.

"Obviously we'll see how it plays and obviously last time we were here we got a good four days out of it and I was lucky enough to spend some time in the middle as well, so I know there are some runs to be had out there and that's a good challenge," Bell said.

"You don't want to just play on flat wickets all the time, you need to put yourself under a bit of pressure and hopefully we'll be able to do that over this four days which will get us in a good place for Brisbane."

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