Australia Champions Beat England Champions by 16 Runs — Moeen Ali's Ten Sixes Earn the Award but Not the Match

There is an odd kind of honour in being named Player of the Match on the losing side. It means the judges looked at the result, looked at one innings, and decided the innings was the bigger of the two. Moeen Ali's was. He came in at 47 for 2 in the sixth over, watched Jason Roy go at 59 for 3, and then hit ten sixes in a 94 not out from 44 balls that dragged England Champions from a chase that was drifting into one that was, for a few overs, genuinely alive. It still fell 16 runs short.

It fell short because Australia Champions had made 218 for 6, and because of two innings at either end of theirs: D'Arcy Short's 60 from 25 balls at the top, and Jonathan Wells's unbeaten 58 from 32 at the bottom, with a slide of four wickets for 33 in between. Australia Champions won by 16 runs. Ben Hilfenhaus had a hand in three of the four English wickets, and in a quiet way that was as decisive as anything Moeen did.

Moeen gave England the start they wanted, David Warner caught by Jason Roy off the fourth ball of the match for nought. It was the last thing that went England's way for six overs. Short and Ben Dunk added 90 in 36 balls, Short hitting five fours and five sixes in a 60 that took 25 deliveries, and when Ravi Bopara finally had him caught by Moeen in the seventh over the score was 91. Dunk went to Liam Plunkett five balls later, and Bopara and Tymal Mills kept chipping away: Joe Burns at 122, Callum Ferguson at 124. Four wickets for 33 runs, and at 124 for 5 after 12.1 overs the innings had lost its shape.

Wells gave it one back. With Nathan Coulter-Nile he added 42 in 26 balls, Coulter-Nile hitting two sixes in a 21 from 12 before Ajmal Shahzad bowled him. Then, with Kane Richardson, 52 more from the last 21 balls without losing another wicket. Wells finished 58 not out from 32 with five fours and four sixes; Australia had taken 94 runs from the last 7.5 overs after being five down. Bopara's 4-0-28-2 was the best of the English bowling, and the fact that the captain's figures were the best tells you how the rest went. Toby Roland-Jones's two overs cost 39 and Mills's four went for 40.

Bopara attacked from the start, 28 from 16 with three fours and a six, and England were 47 without loss after 5.3 overs. Then Hilfenhaus had Dawid Malan caught by Coulter-Nile for 18, and two balls later Bopara was run out, Hilfenhaus again the man involved. Roy fell caught and bowled to Michael Beer at 59, and at 59 for 3 after eight overs, needing 160 from 72 balls, England's chase was in the kind of trouble that usually ends quietly.

Moeen did not let it. He and Phil Mustard put on 95 in 55 balls for the fourth wicket, Mustard hitting three sixes in a 35 that gave Moeen the licence to go after everything. Coulter-Nile's four overs went for 52 and Short's three for 46 as Moeen found the short Sharjah boundaries ten times over the rope and four more along the ground. At 154 for 4 after 17.1 overs, when Hilfenhaus had Mustard caught by Short, England needed 65 from 17 balls. Moeen and Owais Shah took 48 of them. It was never quite enough, but it turned a lost cause into a near thing, and 76 of Moeen's 94 came in boundaries off just 14 deliveries. Hilfenhaus's 4-0-27-2, with a run-out thrown in, was the difference between a total that was defended and one that was not.

Ninety-four not out from 44 balls, ten sixes, and before any of that the wicket of Warner with the fourth ball of the match. Moeen's day was the kind that stays in the memory long after the scoreline has been forgotten, and the judges were right to recognise it even on the losing side. The only regret, for him and for England, is the 95-run stand with Mustard arriving at 59 for 3 rather than 47 for nought; from there the arithmetic was always going to be against him. That he got as close as 16 runs is the measure of the innings.

This match didn't have a CricIntel preview — the World Championship of Legends sits outside our prediction model, which is built for current international and franchise cricket. We'll have full analysis for the next encounter.

Yesterday we called this a knockout for a semi-final place. As it turned out, the result cost England only seeding. With India Champions and Bangladesh Champions both finishing on two points from five, all four of the sides above them qualified. The league table at the close: South Africa Champions 5-0, 10 points, net run rate +2.589; Australia Champions 3-2, 6 points, +0.032; West Indies Champions 3-2, 6 points, -0.489; England Champions 2-3, 4 points, -0.042; India Champions 1-4, 2 points; Bangladesh Champions 1-4, 2 points. Pakistan Champions withdrew before the event.

The semi-finals are on October 16 in Sharjah; pairings have not yet been announced. England go in having lost their last two, by 9 runs to South Africa on October 13 when Malan made 88, and by 16 here. Both were chases that came within one partnership of succeeding. Australia go in with the batting order looking deeper than it did a week ago, Short at the top and Wells at the finish, and with Hilfenhaus bowling like a man who has not forgotten how.