Smith was flummoxed by his dismissal. He pulled Archer sweetly and well in front of square, only to watch as Brydon Carse covered a lot of ground to take a diving catch at the boundary’s edge.
As the pitch settled down, Alex Carey (77, 65 balls) was able to reprise his spiky innings at Headingley. This time he had support from Glenn Maxwell (30, 25 balls) in addition to Aaron Hardie, who clobbered 44 from just 26 balls to turn a probable score in the 275 range into 300 plus.
Starc had the new ball swinging and defeated Phil Salt then Ben Duckett within four balls in the third over of the innings. But with Test captain Ben Stokes looking on at his home ground, Brook married all his enormous skill to a little more presence of mind, sculpting a sublime first ODI century.
There was a sameness to the Australian attack without Zampa or Head to change things up, with only Hazlewood and Hardie able to put a clamp on the scoring rate for any protracted period.
“It’s always a different team when Adam Zampa’s not there, an incredible performer for us over a long period of time,” McDonald said. “It was a late decision to leave him out, so we’ve clearly had a bit of illness in the camp and that’s been well documented, so unfortunately he was the latest casualty in that space.
“We’ve been dealing with [illness] quite well ... the resilience of the group and the way they’ve performed in the first three matches would say it hasn’t been a distraction. Clearly it changes the way you play and the structure of the team, but we’ve handled that pretty well.”
Travis Head was “sore” and rested from the third ODI in Durham.Credit: Getty Images
McDonald said that Australia was now entering a period of transition, as evidenced by the presence of players like Hardie, Cooper Connolly and Mahli Beardman on the tour.
“I see this team evolving with young players coming in,” he said. “We’ve clearly got a Champions Trophy where we’ll be pretty settled with the players we’ve got for that.
“But there’s no doubt then you start to forecast forward to 2027 and some of the players we’re blooding at the moment we’d like to see them in that transition become key members of the team.”
Stokes, meanwhile, indicated that he would return to the white-ball team should new coach Brendon McCullum ask him to, after McCullum took over as all-formats mentor of the England side.
“It’s an amazing opportunity for the white-ball team to experience what Baz has brought to the Test team,” Stokes told Sky Sports. “He’s an incredible coach who speaks with utter commitment, and it’s nice to have all three teams now with the same messaging and the same philosophies towards playing cricket.
“If I get the call and [Baz] says, ‘do you want to come and play?’ Then obviously, it’s definitely going to be a yes.”