ICC Cricket World Cup

Table
England 2pts (+2.08nrr)
Afghanistan
Australia
Bangladesh
India
New Zealand
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
West Indies
South Africa 0pts (-2.08 nrr)


Pool Fixtures

Thu, May 30 
10:30 England vs South Africa  (The Oval)

Fri, May 31 
10:30 West Indies vs Pakistan (Trent Bridge)

Sat, Jun 1 
10:30 New Zealand vs Sri Lanka (Cardiff)
13:30 Afghanistan vs Australia (Bristol)

Sun, Jun 2 
10:30 South Africa vs Bangladesh (The Oval)

Mon, Jun 3 
10:30 England vs Pakistan (Trent Bridge)

Tue, Jun 4 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Sri Lanka (Cardiff)

Wed, Jun 5 
10:30 South Africa vs India (Southampton)
13:30 Bangladesh vs New Zealand (The Oval)

Thu, Jun 6 
10:30 Australia vs West Indies (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 7 
10:30 Pakistan vs Sri Lanka (Bristol)

Sat, Jun 8 
10:30 England vs Bangladesh (Cardiff)
13:30 Afghanistan vs New Zealand (Taunton)

Sun, Jun 9 
10:30 Australia vs India (The Oval)

Mon, Jun 10 
10:30 South Africa vs West Indies (Southampton)

Tue, Jun 11 
10:30 Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka (Bristol)

Wed, Jun 12 
10:30 Australia vs Pakistan (Taunton)

Thu, Jun 13 
10:30 India vs New Zealand (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 14 
10:30 England vs West Indies (Southampton)

Sat, Jun 15 
10:30 Australia vs Sri Lanka (The Oval)
13:30 Afghanistan vs South Africa (Cardiff)

Sun, Jun 16 
10:30 India vs Pakistan (Old Trafford)

Mon, Jun 17 
10:30 Bangladesh vs West Indies (Taunton)

Tue, Jun 18 
10:30 England vs Afghanistan (Old Trafford)

Wed, Jun 19 
10:30 New Zealand vs South Africa (Edgbaston)

Thu, Jun 20 
10:30 Australia vs Bangladesh (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 21 
10:30 England vs Sri Lanka (Headingley)

Sat, Jun 22 
10:30 Afghanistan vs India (Southampton)
13:30 New Zealand vs West Indies (Old Trafford)

Sun, Jun 23 
10:30 Pakistan vs South Africa (Lord’s)

Mon, Jun 24 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Bangladesh (Southampton)

Tue, Jun 25 
10:30 England vs Australia (Lord’s)

Wed, Jun 26 
10:30 New Zealand vs Pakistan (Edgbaston)

Thu, Jun 27 
10:30 India vs West Indies (Old Trafford)

Fri, Jun 28 
10:30 South Africa vs Sri Lanka (Edgbaston)

Sat, Jun 29 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Pakistan (Headingley)
13:30 Australia vs New Zealand (Lord’s)

Sun, Jun 30 
10:30 England vs India (Edgbaston)

Mon, Jul 1 
10:30 Sri Lanka vs West Indies (Riverside Ground)

Tue, Jul 2 
10:30 Bangladesh vs India (Edgbaston)

Wed, Jul 3 
10:30 England vs New Zealand (Riverside Ground)

Thu, Jul 4 
10:30 Afghanistan vs West Indies (Headingley)

Fri, Jul 5 
10:30 Bangladesh vs Pakistan (Lord’s)

Sat, Jul 6 
10:30 India vs Sri Lanka (Headingley)
13:30 Australia vs South Africa (Old Trafford)




Knock Out Fixtures


To Follow

With New Zealand breaking ranks and becoming the first side to name their squad I though we should have a thread for this. Will add in teh fixtures when not at work.

New Zealand squad mostly as expected. I haven't seen enough of Blundell or Seifert to comment on that choice, but think they got it right in going for Sodhi (who I think is an excellent one-day bowler) ahead of Astle's better batting and fielding.

From the rankings ...

Id say Aus are showing they are better than 5th, especially with Warner showing such form in IPL.
SA have a good bowling attack but seem a mess at the top and lacking modern ODI batting and allrounders.
Pakistan are hard to call as they rested most of their first choice players against AUS. Amir has been in awful form but English conditions should suit him if he can get his game back together and cope with the pantomime reception form local fans. I guess their ranking is about right.
West Indies showed against England they are capable of much more than theyve shown in all formats the last couple of years., Gayle seems to have switched back on knowing this is likely his last chance to play on the global stage, sure you wont see many quick singles but his scores and striking have continued from the England games to the IPL. They arent worse than Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka are just awful at cricket, and likely to suffer even more on English pitches. Its hard to rank them below Afghanistan but should be seen as a minnow rather than the usual "dark horse" for a world cup.

Id say England India Aus as the favourites, NZ SA Pakistan West Indies as capable of being good but not consistent enough or deep enough squads to win, Bangladesh Sri Lanka Afghan can win games but rank outsiders to trouble the final.

India have the players but home conditions (and last summer) must mark England as favourites.

Big question for England should be Moeen but that doesnt seem to be a discussion anyone in leadership is having, and the fast strike bowler spot ...Woods injury has stirred that pot again. Archer bandwagon gains momentum....
Woakes' injury issues could open the door for Curran.

Don't want to start the thread on a down note, but a frequent criticism of past Cricket World Cups has been that the tournament has been too long and drawn-out. I don't see such criticisms being alleviated by the format of this World Cup, with 48 games being played over a month and a half.

The majority of the time, vast majority, is that there'll only be one game a day, and with most of the tournament being played in the long group phase, there's great potential for lots of meaningless games towards the end of said group phase.

Anyway, it's finally bloody coming home at last. 9/4 for England to win the prize. Marvellous.

Agree with that Duty. Its yet another way they try to turn it into a cash cow but end up devaluing the product. Id much rather see a short focused tournament with meaningful games.

Also the arguments there should be more teams included are only valid if the top teams play each other less. Arguably Scotland would be a big draw in this particular cup, but are a long way back in terms of quality. Ireland even more so. The likes of Zimbabwe dont bring either quality or audience, and just some awkward protests.
I really dont buy the "bigger better" tournament argument. Its already too long. Afghanistans rise has happened in spite of the exclusivity of the top tournaments (Scotlands too to some extent), and Irelands slump has happened despite getting test status and appearing in many world cups. The argument it helps to build the global game and quality doesnt really hold either.

Whilst the romantic notion holds that a straight knock out would be best the reality is the ICC and most of the audience is married to the idea of having the top few ranked teams in the knock outs regardless of any one off slip ups they make early tournament. the sponsors and global audience like this too despite what they might say individually. People just wont watch Nepal vs Zimbabwe.

The half way house is a bracketed system but noone in sports seems to be able to cope with them outside of North America.

The format seems cynical to me. After about 5 games per side it will probably be fairly obvious who the semi finalists are. It does tick the box of an off day early on not costing a strong team the tournament, but the cynic in me also says it ticks the box of India being guaranteed to play 9 games out of a possible 11

I had not realised what the structure was till I looked at the fixture list. They have had some awful ones before, but this almost seems designed to have as few must win games as possible.

Same format as in Australia in '92 , isn't it ? That actually made for a decent tournament although perhaps a bit long winded.
It does have the merit of allowing a team to recover from a poor early stumble - if they are good enough. Perhaps less chance of bad luck with the weather causing someone to be eliminated as in a normal "group" situation.
(Actually in that Australian event , the eventual winners , Pakistan , owed their place in the knock out stages to some very good luck with the weather. They were dead and buried against England in the round robin when the rain saved them a point. They certainly made the most of the lucky break !)

Somewhat surprisingly Afghanistan have sacked captain Asghar Afghan and replaced him as captain with Gulbadin Naib. Seems an odd move as Asghar has been a very good captain.

Australia's World Cup squad: Aaron Finch (c), Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey (wk), Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pat Cummins, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa

The unfortunate Peter Handscombe misses and they've opted for no second keeper. Josh Hazlewood also misses out

I thought Handscombe might have been included as he could have provided cover as keeper.

LondonTiger wrote:I thought Handscombe might have been included as he could have provided cover as keeper.

TBH I think any squad only needs one of Steven Smith or Shaun Marsh. Australia could be stuffed if Carey breaks a finger just before a match starts

For the record I wouldn’t have selected Smith

India’s World Cup squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, KL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik

India dropped Rayudu and Pant. Looks like Shanker and Rahul are contenting for their number 4 merry go round

Pretty awful that Warner's inclusion in the Aus squad passes with barely any comment as to his suitability given the ball-tampering affair

Warner should never play for Australia again. He couldn't even do his own ball tampering but had to cajole a young player into doing it for him. Just what kind of a message does his inclusion send to aspiring young cricketers?

It's not the best format for providing excitement, but it's possibly the best format for getting the best sides into the knock-outs, so I'm guessing it will be a languid build-up to a pretty intense finals week.

It will be anyone's game once they make the semi-finals, but England should be favourites for the tournament by virtue of the fact that they should be favourites to make the knock out stages. They'd probably have to lose 4 times at home to miss out. They might not come off every time, they should be winning at least 6 games to put themselves in with a chance.

Although the best teams should go through, rain could play a big part in a battle for 3rd and 4th place. In the 2017 Champions Trophy, England stormed the group and with Australia being washed out against New Zealand and Bangladesh, Bangladesh pipped Australia by virtue of beating New Zealand. If the games had reached their conclusion, Australia would have probably beat Bangladesh (the New Zealand game was more even). A situation where any of Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan or South Africa have a couple of wash-outs against lower ranked teams could see them lose out on valuable points and end up going home despite fewer losses across the 9 matches.

I'd say England, India, Australia and Pakistan for the semi-finals if I had to say now.

sirfredperry wrote:Pretty awful that Warner's inclusion in the Aus squad passes with barely any comment as to his suitability given the ball-tampering affair

Warner should never play for Australia again. He couldn't even do his own ball tampering but had to cajole a young player into doing it for him. Just what kind of a message does his inclusion send to aspiring young cricketers?

I went to an Aggers & Tuffers theatre show last night. Both came across better than might have been expected. Tufnell's laddish and jokey manner rather disguises his decent knowledge of the game, probably a deliberate front.

Anyway, both referred to Sandpapergate as being ''the elephant in the room'' for Australia. Whether it affects their performance in the World Cup remains to be seen but it still resonates badly with their own public. Both were also very damning about Bancroft being appointed captain of Durham, their understandable reasoning being - let the guy play and earn his living but a captain, especially one from overseas, should have earned that right and bring special qualities. Bancroft's main characteristic had been being too frightened to say no to doing something he knew was unacceptable.

Both also expect Archer to be in England's squad, probably at the expense of Plunkett or Willey.

G'bat.
I mentioned on some topic earlier - can't remember which - that I thought the Bancroft captaincy thing was all wrong, too. Wonder what the county members said?

sirfredperry wrote:G'bat.
I mentioned on some topic earlier - can't remember which - that I thought the Bancroft captaincy thing was all wrong, too. Wonder what the county members said?

Sir Fred - I think I saw your earlier post at the time and thought it was spot on. Very much with you, Aggers and Tuffers on that - not something I write too often!

guildfordbat wrote:

sirfredperry wrote:Pretty awful that Warner's inclusion in the Aus squad passes with barely any comment as to his suitability given the ball-tampering affair

Warner should never play for Australia again. He couldn't even do his own ball tampering but had to cajole a young player into doing it for him. Just what kind of a message does his inclusion send to aspiring young cricketers?

I went to an Aggers & Tuffers theatre show last night. Both came across better than might have been expected. Tufnell's laddish and jokey manner rather disguises his decent knowledge of the game, probably a deliberate front.

Anyway, both referred to Sandpapergate as being ''the elephant in the room'' for Australia. Whether it affects their performance in the World Cup remains to be seen but it still resonates badly with their own public. Both were also very damning about Bancroft being appointed captain of Durham, their understandable reasoning being - let the guy play and earn his living but a captain, especially one from overseas, should have earned that right and bring special qualities. Bancroft's main characteristic had been being too frightened to say no to doing something he knew was unacceptable.

Both also expect Archer to be in England's squad, probably at the expense of Plunkett or Willey.

I'd agree. There will probably be no sentimentality for England in selection. If he's available and bowling well, he'll be in.

Just read woakes comments on Archer...yikes!
If he is included nownits going to be very divisive

Meanwhile, down in Bristol, Plunkett has figures of 0/53 from his 5 overs in Surrey's RL 50 against Gloucs.

Yes saw that too... I guess its Plunkett and Willey that are the vulnerable ones in the preliminary 15.

Whatever members  thoughts at the time were about Bancroft hes busy winning them over right now in the RLC 141 off 124 balls right now, no doubt the opposition wish they had bought some sandpaper. I do find it interesting that a lot of people had more sympathy for Amir Khan as a young player getting caught up in a corrupt cultrure, Bancroft was made to feel his place in the side was encumbant on him being Warner and Smiths fiddler ...there might be an element of " I was just following orders" but the culture that pushed him into it and made him feel it was what was expected of him and normal was the bigger issue than the actual individual involved. Letrs face it too where Australia when with this is only a small touch furtehr than other teams have done for years , think back to jelly babies and Atherton outright being caught rubbing dirt on the ball. As with bloodgate in rugby sometimes it takes an extrememe case and a few peopel being made an example of to reset the global culture, fine, but I honestly dont see Bancroft as the big villain in all this. The likes of Warner who have got away with bullying behaviour and outright lying to defend himself for years are a bigger problem.

South Africa Squad: Faf du Plessis, JP Duminy, David Miller, Dale Steyn, Andile Phehlukwayo, Imran Tahir, Kagiso Rabada, Dwaine Pretorius, Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Hashim Amla, Tabraiz Shamsi

No place for Reeza Hendricks as veteran Hashim Amla gets set for one last dance. Chris Morris and Wiaan Mulder also miss out. Ngidi and Nortje selected whilst still injured. Markram gets selected after scoring 4 centuries in the South African list a tournament.

Sri Lanka Squad: Dimuth Karunaratne (c), Avishka Fernando, Lahiru Thirimanne, Kusal Perera (wk), Kusal Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Jeevan Mendis, Milinda Siriwardana, Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera, Isuru Udana, Lasith Malinga, Suranga Lakmal, Jeffrey Vandersay, Nuwan Pradeep.

No space for Chandimal, Akila or Dickwella

Pakistan Squad: Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abid Ali, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez (subject to fitness), Shadab Khan, Imad Wasim, Haris Sohail, Hasan Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Hasnain

Hero of the champions trophy final Mohammad Amir misses out after his recent woes, 5 wickets at nearly 100 since that final. Form man Mohammad Rizwan strangely missing as well

Nathaniel Jacobs wrote:India’s World Cup squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, KL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik

India dropped Rayudu and Pant. Looks like Shanker and Rahul are contenting for their number 4 merry go round

Hello All.....the world cup and champions Trophy are the only ODIs worth seriously following and as we get close, teams are out...here are some of my thoughts on the Indian team and in general

-India's strength are the two wrist-spinners who in the usually dead middle overs will pick wickets and change games

-and they've got probably the best top-3 batsmen in the world

-India has a mediocre middle order and a long tail starting from No. 8 if they leave out Bhuvi or from No. 9 even if they play him.....not too different from what we saw in tests.
So the top order has to fire big and middle order stand up.......and stiil there will be games that India will loose due to lower middle and lower order crashing in a heap
-Seam bowling is comparable to the top sides.

I thinks India will finish 3rd or 4th in this round robin league format

--the format itself is tough and will be a true test and real ranking of who stands where
If your team finishes in the top-4 you can be proud you have a world class team...because beyond that , the occasion, nerves, conditions / toss and temperament will make it into a lottery

remember 1992 Pak made a bad start and came from the brink to win in foreign conditions....the strongest of all world cup wins i would rank that one achieved by Pak under Imran

and the weakest format was 2011...where top-8 sides were literally guaranteed place in QF after which it was a lottery.....that favored subcontinent teams


My prognosis on how table will read at the end of Round Robin

1-Aus
2-SA
3-Eng
4-Ind
5-NZ

I largely agree with KP_fan about the lottery effect in the semis and final...and about the top five teams in the round robin.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the order though : I fancy England , at home , to finish top and expect NZ to be in the first four although I'm reluctant to guess at which team's expense . I imagine pitch and weather conditions will play a significant part in settling all this and since those remain uncontrollable and hence unpredictable we will all have to wait and see what actually happens...

Should be fun anyway

SA and Aus finished 3rd in their groups in the CT and are ranked 4th and fifth in the world rankings now.
Ill grant that Aus have got stronger with the return of Smith and Warner,and had shown they were on an upward curve anyway. But I dont see that same level of improvement from SA, if anything they are going backwards.
The CT showed that Asian teams can do well in England, and if you look at the notworhfollowing ODIs played here over the last 3 summers England have only lost one game to each of Pakistan, India, and SA. Sri Lanka got a tie. The Asian teams have done better than the seam centric Australia, SA, NZ and West Indies. The ability to bat against spin, and havnig decent spinners, is still important in England.
I really dont rate SA on either of those points. Nor is their batting anything spectacular nowadays. Amlas ship sailed a long time ago (yeah OK I said that about Gayle!) and Im surprised to see him named in a tournament that could see 450 plus scores as a normality. Makram could be a star for them but his ODI record to date is pretty poor averaging 29 with most of his games against weaker sides. They are notoriously bad against spinners and struggle to balance a side with 2 in theirs. India took them apart in their own backyard a year ago.
All in I find it really hard to see what makes anyone think theyd finish in the top 2 of the group stage, the top 4 might even be a push. Aus should be stronger but have been heavily beaten by England and India in recent times. Those are the 3 teams that stand out to me, any of the rest can of course "beat them on their day" and getting a place in that top 4 as mentioned above and shown the CT can go on to win the thing. But i really dont think SA are anything to be over concerned about.

As I understand the format....there are 10 teams in an all-play-all format..
Means 9 games each.....and while on any day any-one can theoretically beat the other.....such randomness not possible over 9 games

Over 9 games....the entire set cricketing skills & depth will be tested such as
ability to see thru a hostile spell of pace or magical spin....or having technically correct batsmen in a game where seaming conditions prevail....ability to cope with breakdown of a key fast bowler...and so on....

Its like playing two test matches ( actually 900 overs is more than 2 full tests).....and a lot of skills that are needed in a two test series will come into fore here
so I would not give a high chance to lowly rated test sides.....because of the rigors of the format

KP_fan wrote:
so I would not give a high chance to lowly rated test sides.....because of the rigors of the format

New Zealand are rated 2 in tests (and 3 in ODis) but you dont have them in the top 4 from the groups? India are ranked one in tests and two in ODIs but you have them coming 4th.
Aside form it being a seriously flawed argument anyway you aren't even following it in your predictions.

The top 5 are the same teams in both formats, just a different order. So even if you are correct that they end up making up the top 5 after the group stages it does nothing to prove your rather odd assertion that the test rankings are more relevant than the ODI ones and results of actual ODI games played in England over the last few years. Or things like how good the teams actually are.

I do agree though that outside that top 5 theres a big drop in quality and squad depth, and yes the format absolutely is set up to stop what happened in the Champions trophy with wild card teams like Bangladesh and Pakistan exceeding expectations. West Indies with their top players back showed they can be dangerous and there will be some upset results along the way, but the chances of them or Sri Lanka making the knock outs are almost zero. Thats not because they arent good tests sides, its because they arent good ODI sides. In most cases the two go hand in hand.

Gooseberry wrote:

KP_fan wrote:
so I would not give a high chance to lowly rated test sides.....because of the rigors of the format

New Zealand are rated 2 in tests (and 3 in ODis) but you dont have them in the top 4 from the groups? India are  ranked one in tests and two in ODIs but you have them coming 4th.
Aside form it being a seriously flawed argument anyway you aren't even following it in your predictions.

The top 5 are the same teams in both formats, just a different order. So even if you are correct that they end up making up the top 5 after the group stages it does nothing to prove your rather odd assertion that the test rankings are more relevant than the ODI ones and results of actual ODI games played in England over the last few years. Or things like how good the teams actually are.

-I don't follow ODIs so deepls as tests.....so i  did not know  who were the top-5 in ODis ....but if those end up being top-5 in this world cup....... it will be because of their test-match skills and not because of ODI rankings in my view

-Why my rankings are different from the absolute test rankings? because

1-for eg while Ind is definitely top-4 test side, its not the best test side in all conditions....test rankings are a bit skewed because of the obvious home / away  disconnect in rankings
2-It's not 100% test skills...some other ODI skills weigh in causing a skew
3-There is my subjective analysis / gut feel factor also  on how it will end up

It would be interesting to hear from other regular members who they feel will end up as top-5

My prediction for the longgggg group phase of the World Cup would be:

1 - India
2 - England
3 - Australia
4 - South Africa
5 - Pakistan
6 - New Zealand
7 - West Indies
8 - Afghanistan
9 - Bangladesh
10 - Sri Lanka

The top three teams are a class above anyone else at this tournament, and I would expect them to make the semis without too much difficulty. The winners of the World Cup will almost certainly be one of those three, most likely England. Not a lot between 4/5/6, any of those could take the final semi-final spot...any of them could win the whole thing if their respective key players hit form at the opportune moment. Then 7/8/9/10...the no hopers. Sri Lanka's squad, in particular, looks absolutely appalling. Afghanistan have some promising players, and some excellent spinners, but the conditions aren't suited to them.

I agree with KP Fan's top 5, though not in the same order. I'd say Windies have a chance of springing a surprise semi final spot, I am not convinced by Pakistan this time. My order would be:

England
India
New Zealand
Australia
South Africa

England
India
Aus
NZ
SA
Windies
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Afghan
Surrey

Gooseberry wrote:England
India
Aus
NZ
SA
Windies
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Afghan
Surrey

guildfordbat wrote:

Gooseberry wrote:England
India
Aus
NZ
SA
Windies
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Afghan
Surrey

Based on their RLC form mate

All the provisional squads named and in the OP

Dale Steyn has once again suffered another shoulder injury. His World Cup hopes are on the line and potentially his career as well.

A couple of players ruled out with injures.

South Africa's Anrich Nortje has broken his thumb and has been replaced by Chris Morris

Australia speed merchant Jhye Richardson failed to recover from his dislocated shoulder, he's replaced by Kane Richardson rather surprisingly instead of Josh Hazlewood.

Steyns now considered probable to SA's first game ..but his injury record doesn't bode well for him lasting the tournament

Pakistan have made three changes to their final World Cup squad. Mohammad Amir, Asif Ali and Wahab Riaz are all in. Juniad Khan, Abid Ali and Faheem Ashraf are axed.

Slightly surprised Riaz is in

England squad leaked as

Squad will be

Roy
Bairstow
Vince
Root
Morgan
Stokes
Buttler
Ali
Woakes
Dawson
Archer
Curran
Plunkett
Wood
Rashid

Willey and Denly miss out

Where you getting that from Olly?

Willey would be no shock, and tbf Byliss did say they were still considering Dawson as the " next best spinner" (such a great spinner hes been trusted with 14 overs in 3 games), whereas Denly covers more positions. I guess they already have a spare in everything except spinner though and being in England can easily get hold of specialists at short notice if the suffer multiple injuries so the utility player is of less value for the squad.

It would be a hell of thing to pick a guy who was dropped from the squad then not even picked in an extended group or for the T20 game though. Its kind of typical Baylis flip flopping too. Denly will probably be very upset if this is the case, but I guess he only has himself to blame by not making the most of the chances hes had ( like Dawson), and this time last year wouldnt have had realistic fantasies about getting in any England squads.
Strange bit of history repeating if Dawson does get in without being part of the build up...and doesnt play as per the T20 world cup.

13/8 with SkyBet that the heavyweight trio of England, India and Australia all make the semi-final.

Arguably the kindest gift a bookmaker has ever bestowed on the humble punter.

England squad confirmed as listed above.

Willey the unfortunate seamer to miss out - probably came down to him or Plunkett after Woakes and Curran have performed well during the Pakistan series.

I assume Denly hasn't looked up to much in practice, hence the switch to Dawson as the back up spinner. If Morgan doesn't rate Denly's bowling as useful, then he was a bit redundant anyway, as he wouldn't take a spot purely on batting. Not that I expect Dawson to get much game time.

A couple of bowling spots still open in the England first XI:
Roy
Bairstow
Root
Morgan
Stokes
Buttler
Ali
Woakes
Rashid
Archer/Wood
Curran/Plunkett

I suspect Archer and Curran will start the first match, but we will see some rotation for the seamers.

Duty281 wrote:13/8 with SkyBet that the heavyweight trio of England, India and Australia all make the semi-final.

Arguably the kindest gift a bookmaker has ever bestowed on the humble punter.

Agreed. In such a long pool stage you'd really favour the stronger teams to come out of it. You can have a shock loss to one of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or Afghanistan but should be able to pull yourself through.

Similarly if there is one surprise package who does really well, you'd still expect those 3 to qualify around them.

dummy_half wrote:England squad confirmed as listed above.

Willey the unfortunate seamer to miss out - probably came down to him or Plunkett after Woakes and Curran have performed well during the Pakistan series.

I assume Denly hasn't looked up to much in practice, hence the switch to Dawson as the back up spinner. If Morgan doesn't rate Denly's bowling as useful, then he was a bit redundant anyway, as he wouldn't take a spot purely on batting. Not that I expect Dawson to get much game time.

A couple of bowling spots still open in the England first XI:
Roy
Bairstow
Root
Morgan
Stokes
Buttler
Ali
Woakes
Rashid
Archer/Wood
Curran/Plunkett

I suspect Archer and Curran will start the first match, but we will see some rotation for the seamers.

I imagine all 4 of the reserves will see some game time. While it's good sense to rotate the seamers to keep them at their best, you could say the batsmen and the spinners should be able to play through. However that leaves you with Vince and Dawson perhaps falling off the pace, and if they have to come in later in the tournament for an injury then they won't have long to get up to speed.

https://twitter.com/englandcricket/status/1130904853398597634?s=21

My word these are absolutely beautiful