1st Semi-Final: Australia Vs. England - - Heroic Innings of 80 Runs by Tim Bresnan Helped England to Post 257 on The Board

Tim Bresnan produced the highest score ever made by an England No. 8 in ODI cricket to transform his team's fortunes after they had flirted with humiliation in their Champions Trophy semi-final against Australia. After winning an important toss, England's top-order collapsed to 101 for 6 in a blaze of attacking intent before Bresnan joined Luke Wright, who made 48, to add 107 for the seventh wicket. He was eventually bowled for 80 from 76 balls, and though Australia hit back to dismiss England with 14 balls of their innings remaining, they were still left chasing an unexpectedly stiff 258 for a place in Monday's final.

Bresnan was a late addition to the side after Stuart Broad failed to recover from a strained left buttock, and he entered the game with a slap on the wrists from the management after abusing a fan who had made fun of his weight on the social networking site, Twitter. But his extra bacon ended up saving England's, as Australia's strange inability to bowl out the tail - a failing that cost them dear in the Ashes as well - returned to unsettle them once again.

After 20.2 overs, England's spirited campaign was in ruins, as their apparent last hope of a defendable total, Eoin Morgan, feathered an attempted cut off Shane Watson to give Tim Paine his fourth, and easiest, catch of the innings. Up to and including that dismissal, England had batted with the same gung-ho aggression that had carried them to impressive wins against Sri Lanka and South Africa, but with wickets tumbling at regular and inopportune moments, they were in danger of being skittled with half of their overs remaining.

The tone of the performance had been set inside the first two overs, as Andrew Strauss launched with a cover-driven four and a top-edged six before clipping Peter Siddle to James Hopes at square leg. Owais Shah followed his breathtaking 98 from 89 balls at this same venue on Sunday with a second-ball duck as Paine clung on superbly down the leg-side, and though Paul Collingwood bristled during a counterattacking 34, he too was a victim of Paine's athleticism, as he leapt one-handed to cling onto a top-edged pull off the new ICC World Cricketer of the Year, Mitchell Johnson.

Joe Denly opted for placement over power during his 36 from 44 balls before snicking Siddle to give Paine his third catch of the innings, and the wicketkeeper Steven Davies - making his ODI debut after replacing the ill Matt Prior - lasted a mere four deliveries before inside-edging Watson onto his off stump. After averting a 7-0 whitewash in the last meeting between the teams in Durham last month, normal service seemed to have been resumed with a vengeance.

But instead, with more than half of their overs still remaining, Bresnan and Wright set about rebuilding from the very foundations of the innings. Both men needed a bit of luck as they established themselves at the crease, with Bresnan inside-edging Watson past his stumps for four, before Wright slashed Johnson past a wide slip and through third man, but they bedded down with discipline, and laid themselves a platform from which to cut loose.

Wright signalled the charge in the 35th over by smacking Nathan Hauritz for two sixes over midwicket, the second of which landed in the hospitality boxes, and though his innings came to a tame end when he fished outside off at Siddle for Paine - inevitably - to claim the catch, Bresnan continued to march onwards and upwards, using a good eye and a heavy bat to punish any error in line or length.

Even when Australia got it right, Bresnan still found an apt response, as Lee discovered twice in one over, as perfect-length deliveries were edged through the vacant slip cordon. Graeme Swann joined the fun with 18 from 15 balls, including two sweetly timed punches through the covers, before he was run out from the first ball of the Powerplay while stretching for an ambitious two to third man.

Bresnan added one more boundary, his 11th of the innings, before Lee bowled him with a full-length delivery, and England's innings finished as disappointingly as it had begun, as another run-out curtailed their innings with more than two overs remaining. Nevertheless, the tail's effort has given them hope, and that's more than England could have envisaged at the midpoint of the innings.