336/5. It’s raining at the break, so overs may well be lost for Pakistan, which may actually sit in their favour - the current D/L/S rules slightly favour the team batting second, it seems, but whatever it is in whatever overs they are alloted, it’s going to be a tough ask. But Pakistan have been batting big in the series against England before the tournament started, so who knows?
I will tactfully not elaborate on the predictions in the previous post, mainly because Bangladesh have just smashed up my prediction of WI as dark horse for the top 4 by thrashing them today. A great moment for Bangladeshi cricket, well done to them. I don’t think they’ll make the semis but they are obviously still progressing and no side can take them lightly any more. As for Windies, I’d have thought they’d have learnt from their last game that they need another bowling tactic apart from banging it in short, but apparently not. Shame for them that they haven’t managed to produce their best form when it matters.
I did say it was a tough ask!
Well played to Bangladesh, and I’m a bit glad we’ve already played them. I think they’ll falter against better opposition, but I think they are more likely to contest a semi final spot than WI or Pakistan now.
That was a rather good batting performance by England. Morgan breaks Chris Gayle’s record of most sixes in a ODI innings, smashing 17 of them in his 148. Root and Bairstow fall just short of centuries. 31 off 9 in a cameo by Ali. England break their own ODI record of most sixes in an innings, with 25. Just failed to reach 400. Rashid Khan breaks record for most runs conceded in a World Cup match with 110, off only 9 overs. 142 runs for England off the last 10 overs. Oh, and James Vince scratched around for 26.
Morgan was epic. Barely a mis-struck six among them. His 148 was off 71 balls, that was immense in itself but the fact is that he hit a century in sixes alone. Oh, and he didn’t come in until the 30th over.. But then I suppose it meant he could rest his bad back.
Afghanistan currently 52-2 in a forlorn chase. I think the rise of Afghanistan cricket is one of the great, unheralded sporting stories of the last decade but I’m afraid they aren’t going to get much glory out of this.
It’s been suggested on Cricinfo commentary that Afghanistan’s best plan is to bat out as many overs as possible and forget about the score, they’re not going to reach the target but they can get some useful experience against a top bowling attack. If they make it past 40 overs they can count that as an achievement, I think. On that basis, they’re doing pretty well.
From an England perspective, obviously we want to restrict them to as few runs as possible to boost our NRR, just in case that becomes important later on.
In classic James Vince fashion, he got to 21, tried to give it away, was dropped, got himself up to 26 and then succeeded in giving it away.
This injury to Roy could be heavily consequential. Still India’s tournament to lose in my view.
Agreed. They have the best bowler and one of the best batsmen. But they could get injured too, of course.
There might be a case for Roy slogging for boundaries and not running at all being more effective than Vince…
I think they need to have a serious think about opening with Root, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it gives him the most time at the crease - almost alone amongst England’s batsmen, he is best playing a long innings at a run a ball - everyone else can go off in short bursts, so give him the slot which allows him to build a long innings of substance with everyone else going after it. Second, he doesn’t slog much, but if he does in the opening 10 overs, there’s not many men out, so his margin for error is bigger, should he feel the need. Third, and something we saw in the WI game, it guarantees a partnership with Bairstow - both of whom like to run hard between the wickets. England should always have knocked off the WI total - but Roy was injured and Morgan was injured, so it could have been a problem had a couple of quick wickets gone down. Instead, they didn’t just slog, they kept the scoreboard moving by running - everything that doesn’t go to the fence in the first 10 overs, given the fielding restrictions, becomes a 3.
Hales being a dickhead has not been helpful. The above is clearly a second best scenario. Ideally Roy would be fit and we’d keep attacking the first 10 overs by bashing it around.
Brutal by Morgan. He out-Gayled Chris Gayle, and not many people can claim that. Last game, England didn’t hit a single six in motoring to 200+ at better that a run a ball, so maybe they thought they had some catching up to do. Incidentally, Afghanistan are yet to play West Indies, and the spectators for that one might need hard hats if Gayle decides he wants his record back.
The downside of opening with Root is that the innings loses its spine if he gets a great ball in the first couple of overs. Morgan / Stokes / Buttler are all at their best with him at the other end, because they know they don’t have to smash everything to keep the scoreboard moving. But how many more times does Vince have to fail before the management decide he can’t cut it at this level?
Any supporters for moving Moeen back to opener?
Some potential pressure games coming up - New Zealand - South Africa (who aren’t as bad as they’ve played) is a potential banana skin, Bangladesh have to beat India or Australia or resign themselves to 5th place - and Australia look the easier challenge - and Sri Lanka have to beat England or go home (and it’s also the last game England can’t afford to lose).
The more I see of him the more I think of Vince as this generation’s Mark Ramprakash - hugely talented, loads of runs, enjoyable to watch (well, not today), just can’t quite cut it at the very top.
Found myself getting surprisingly into NZ/SA, even though the result isn’t likely to be hugely important from an England perspective. Been a fairly balanced game all the way through, but in the last few overs NZ have looked well in control and cruising to their target, with SA all over the place - dropping catches, missing run-outs, failing to review a decision that would have seen Williamson depart some time ago. And yet - here is a wicket, with 12 runs required from the final 2 overs! Exciting finish coming up, potentially.
…and Kane Williamson shows what he thinks of exciting finishes, bringing up his hundred with the winning six. NZ are heading for the semis, and SA still don’t know where they’re going.
Smacking a six in the final over to bring up your hundred and level the scores seems pretty exciting to me.
Does this mean only Bangladesh has a shot of making the semi finals?
Would it be fair to say that England and India are roughly comparable on batting? They seem to be the only teams capable of consistently scoring 350+ and I suspect the match on the 30th will be a warm-up for the final.
I’m not yet convinced that New Zealand are as good as they look on the table right now. They’ve had fairly comfortable opponents and were destroyed by West Indies in a warm-up match (although they also beat India). They and Australia are probably the best of the rest but with a significant margin to England-India. There’s still some mythology hanging around Australia but I don’t think they have the firepower to beat either of them.
Well that’s the smart way to bet and one of Eng/Ind is short odds to win it.
But the odds are way longer that it will be an End/Ind final.
In the semis, one of Aust/NZ will win over End/Ind, or one semi will be Eng v Ind.
At the start of the tournament there was speculation that England could score 500.
Now the bar has been lowered to “consistently scoring 350”.
Each of the form 4 wouldn’t be overawed chasing 350 against any of the others.
But as the old adage goes, there are 10 good deliveries in any innings and the rest are crap.
So it will break down to a short burst of quality bowling wrecking an innings and Boult/Henry or Starc/Cummins are as likely to do it as any other.
I’m not so sure 350 isn’t a winning score against Australia. If Maxwell and Finch both have a good day, or one scores big with cameos from Smith, Carey, etc, they can do it, but I think they’d be hard-pressed to get beyond 350. An equivalent good day for England and India seems to be >400. West Indies too but they drop a lot further if one of their big hitters fails.
Yes, Starc/Cummins can wreck those plans but they really both have to bowl well because there’s not much threat from the other bowlers (maybe unless Lyon gets a game, although I saw what happened to Rashid Khan).
Maybe I’ve underestimated NZ, I know hardly anything about their recent form before the WC.
Everybody does, including themselves.
This tournament is still England’s to lose but …
In contrast to:
Both Finch and Warner were in 2nd/3rd gear for most of the first 25 overs, pushing dot balls of the middle to cover rather than working them around for a single behind square.
Tactical error not putting Maxwell in at #3 but good to see Khawaja show that (like Kohli) you can score at 125/100 playing solid cricket shots without the ramps, slogs and switch hitting circus acts.
Maxwell get’s BBQ’d. Khawaja gets a dose of remorse and blows a ton.
Smith has a brain fade, Aust have lost 3 for 2 and the innings peters out with nudging and noodling. 381.
I’m not yet convinced Aust is ranked better than 4th here but a metric shed load goes wrong vs Bangladesh and they still 381 while leaving over 50 in the locker room.
I expect we’ll see to absolutely cracking semi-finals and a blowout win in the final to India or England.
Yes, they proved me wrong. I didn’t think Warner was capable of an innings like that any more.
I’ve never understood the handling of Maxwell. He’s either not picked or put too far down the order to have full impact.
Australian tactical thinking is a generation behind current practice, but shit hey we’ve won 5 of 11 WCs plus two runner-ups so until it’s shown to be broke, why fix?
The Aust thinking is that a ODI innings is built around one of the top 3 batting deep and scoring a century and cameos from the middle order to put the cream on top.
Modern thinking is that you can have those cameos performing anywhere in the order to maintain momentum. Indeed the innings can comprise only cameos. It doesn’t matter who/how/when the runs are scored. Of course, that thinking hasn’t actually won anything yet so it might just be a flash in the pan. Modern thinking would unquestionably work if a team could amend the batting order with retirements as the match situation saw fit without the retired batsman being considered as dismissed. You’d send out batsmen so as to keep a right/left dasher/nudger pair at the crease for the entire innings.
The alpha males who pick and play for Australia have no truck at all with the notion of pitch hitters. Everyone in the order is expected to be able to adapt to the match requirements i.e. “score some bloody runs or get out.”