Ollie Robinson stars for England Lions in win over Australia A

Sussex’s Ollie Robinson made a further push for full international honours with a match-winning performance for England Lions in their unofficial day-night Test against Australia A at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The seamer finished with match figures of 7 for 147 as the tourists romped to a nine-wicket victory, the Lions’ first ever win against Australia A.

Having contributed 13 to a tenth-wicket partnership of 37 as the Lions scored 428 batting first, Ollie then picked up 3 for 66 from 22 overs as the hosts were skittled for 176.

His victims included Australian Test players Marcus Harris and Moises Henriques.

Lions skipper Keaton Jennings enforced the follow on, but the heavy workload had little impact on Robinson’s potency.

He took the wicket of Australia A wicketkeeper Josh Inglis for the second time in the match, before making light work of the tail to finish with 4 for 81 from his 21.4 overs.

Australia A’s second innings total of 271 left the Lions requiring 20 for victory, a target they reached for the loss of just Dom Sibley.  

Robinson was the leading wicket-taker in the match, just ahead of his new ball partner Craig Overton who took 6 for 101.

STAT: No English seam bowler took as many first-class wickets as Ollie Robinson’s 145 across the 2018 and 2019 calendar years. Globally, only Duanne Olivier (168) and Peter Siddle (147) took more.

At the conclusion of the match, Lions head coach Richard Dawson praised the efforts of Robinson and his fellow bowlers: “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.

“The preparation that we had done prior to the game, including the physically demanding game in Hobart, put us in a good position to perform how we did in this game.

“The way we competed across all four days, session by session, was really impressive. Once we got ahead of the game and posted that first innings total, we held the ascendancy. We kept it really basic, breaking things down to keep it simple and the effort within the squad was high class.”