By Julian Guyer
Australia captain Michael Clarke praised two of the newcomers to the tour of England as his side put their Ashes defeat behind them with a tense four-run win in the first one-day international.
Callum Ferguson won the man-of-the-match award for an unbeaten 71 here at the Oval on Friday and Cameron White weighed in with 53 as Australia, returning to the scene of their 197-run fifth-Test Ashes losing defeat, went 1-0 up in this seven-match series.
Ferguson's innings was the centrepiece of Australia's 260 for five, a total that just proved too much for England to overhaul as they finished on 256 for eight.
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'I'm taking a lot of positives out of tonight' The 24-year-old South Australian's score was his best in 15 matches at this level and took just 75 balls.
"We've got a lot of new players in our squad that didn't take part in the Ashes," Clarke, deputising for the resting Ricky Ponting, told reporters.
"One-day cricket is a lot different to Test cricket, I'm taking a lot of positives out of tonight.
"Callum Ferguson played beautifully," Clarke added ahead of Sunday's second match at Lord's.
"But for Cameron Wright get an opportunity at No 3 and play the way he did was fantastic. It shows he's a good all-round player and can bat in any position."
'... the way we bowled and fielded was very good' Clarke, whose 45 was subdued by his normally fluent standards, admitted: "I thought we were maybe 15, 20 runs short but that was mainly down to my batting. I took too many balls to score the runs I did.
"But the way we bowled and fielded was very good. We were very disciplined," he said after seeing left-arm fast bowler Mitchell Johnson take three wickets for 24 runs.
England fell just short with Ryan Sidebottom unable to score the six required off the last ball from fellow left-arm quick Nathan Bracken.
However, things ought not to have been so tight.
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