ICC Cricket World Cup

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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

So scoreboard pressure in a WC game, more than anything else, eventually did England in. The pitch, it turned out to be not the absolute garbage it had become in recent times. There was no magic from Shadab, Amir and Wahab, but they all chipped in at crucial times. The experience stood out, and the 5th bowler combine did the job. There were too fine innings from Root and Buttler, but the rest didn't contribute enough.

The Sri Lanka Afghanistan game should hopefully be an interesting one. The Afghan bowling is clearly better. But their batting is poorer than that of the Lankans. Not a huge difference between the 2 sides.

msp83 wrote:The Sri Lanka Afghanistan game should hopefully be an interesting one. The Afghan bowling is clearly better. But their batting is poorer than that of the Lankans. Not a huge difference between the 2 sides.

Hopefully a good game, marginally favour the Afghans, but unfortunately it looks as though rain will spoil the encounter.

msp83 wrote:The Sri Lanka Afghanistan game should hopefully be an interesting one. The Afghan bowling is clearly better. But their batting is poorer than that of the Lankans. Not a huge difference between the 2 sides.

I am worried about our India-- SA for following reasons

1-They are cold not having played an ODI for long & starting tournament when others like SA have reached a do or die
2- can't see SA lose 3 in a row
3- India's best chance is
a) Bat first and get 300....we have bowling to defend 300 surely.....great opening pair of Bumrah , shami......3rd seamer not great, but not bad Pandya can hit 90mph....and then the two match winning writs spinners.
b) Bowl first and bowl out SA for 270ish max.......our batting surely will chase down 270

Our worst case is if we get to chase 300+.......that's only a 40% chance of success...as our tail starts at no. 8

Moeens place in the team has to be up for discussion, what a woeful effort with the bat from him today, cost us the game.

jimbohammers wrote:Moeens place in the team has to be up for discussion, what a woeful effort with the bat from him today, cost us the game.

Bit far that Jimbo - he was our best bowler today, and as noted the fielding is what let us down ultimately (and also the other bats who got out very softly early on). Albeit Moeen clearly isn’t in good form with the bat at the moment, might not be the worst idea to shift Woakes ahead of him in the order

Looks like we may have our first rained off game today

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

jimbohammers wrote:Moeens place in the team has to be up for discussion, what a woeful effort with the bat from him today, cost us the game.

Bit far that Jimbo - he was our best bowler today, and as noted the fielding is what let us down ultimately (and also the other bats who got out very softly early on). Albeit Moeen clearly isn’t in good form with the bat at the moment, might not be the worst idea to shift Woakes ahead of him in the order

Moeen batting where he does isnt the reason England screwed this game up but its not the first time its made things harder for them recently. His form has been awful for a long period, which is pretty typical Moeen tbh. Certainly his bowling though was vital is slowing Pakistans very strong start and creating the pressure that got the early wickets. Again typical Moeen just when you think his stocks low he pulls something important out of the bag.
But he is one of the weaker links in Englands side, especially when his battings off. Its not just the lack of big score but that hes too often taken a couple of overs to bed in at times when England should be looking to pump every ball they can. Even the confidence he shouldve taken form a strong bowling performance didnt pay off this time, it was a very typical Moeen innings. Since Sept 2017 hes averaged 16 with the bat and 43 with the ball.

Which isnt to say I think Liam Dawson would be much/any better, and had his bowling been backed up by the fielders and the likes of Woakes, Rashid and Archer then England couldve/shouldve won that game. I do think hes a weak link and the one obvious area where England could improve were Chuck Norris qualified, but for that game you have to look at so many usually influential players not turning up to the party.

Rashid: Mauled .. that happens from time to time to a leggy. he bowled well in the first match and got good figures.
Woakes: Inacurate and either got the wrong fields or didnt bowl to them. He did bat well and took some amazing catches but his primary job is bowling. There was some argument on TMS that they shouldve gone with Plunkett, which I can understand and in hindsight mightve been the better choice. But as it was his secondary disciplines were almost enough to pull it out of the bag.
Archer: Maybe the plans for him were wrong. Aside form bowling a few too high bouncers and losing his line at times the slow balls just werent as effective on this pitch. the last ball he bowled went for 6 and was a gimme just when England had started to get some level of control back. Bit of inexperience showing? He got the opportunity to do something amazing with his power at the death with the bat and failed too. If that had been his first game for England people would be rubbishing him.
Roy ... Bad day at the office? Pressure getting to him? The one big obvious single moment that really turned the game wouldve been that catch and he didnt do much with the bat, but you cant lay the whole loss on his shoulders.
Morgans captaincy seemed flawed in the field too. Oh and we should probably slag Root off for getting a century like we did Babar a few weeks ago.


England are not a bad side overnight but they do need to be collectively switched on and play close to their abilities more consistently. Theres always going to be the odd player who makes a mistake or has a bad day, usually they can carry that but so many were off yesterday. Pressure and expectation may be part of that. Some might say arrogance, I dont think thats fair.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Looks like we may have our first rained off game today

When that'll liven up the race for the wooden spoon! I was actually looking forward to this one, Afghan wouldve fancied it as their best chance for a scalp.
Its a big shame, yesterdays game was the first one where the tournament had really come to life and although this is a very low key fixture it was one of the more intriguing ones.

Anyone have the draw in the tipping competition?

Thankfully the tournament really gets going from tomorrow in terms of the fixtures. Today is interesting for the purist but not one the wider public would care about, plus as stated by others it will be a reduced match at best

https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/cricket-world-cup-schedule-the-answer-to-why-india-are-playing-first-match-so-late-does-not-make-any-sense-2170947.html

what a crap reason ....and even crappier that ICC bought it

KP_fan wrote:https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/cricket-world-cup-schedule-the-answer-to-why-india-are-playing-first-match-so-late-does-not-make-any-sense-2170947.html

what a crap reason ....and even crappier that ICC bought it

Have to agree KP_F - not like India were the only nation with players playing in the IPL!

Completely unfair on the other teams, and shows that the ICC are as usual bending over backwards to mitigate and chance that India won't make the semi finals. I hope now that they crash out in the group stages, this is pathetic

Woah they would've been better off not saying that, its appalling reasoning! Id always assumed there was some kind of weird scheduling algorithm based on venues and seedings but no this has actual human design considerations and for the worst of reasons.
BCCICC at it again.

I don't see the issue with India getting a delayed start. We often see the same at the football world cup where Brazil get special treatment. At the end of the day ICC is there to make money as well. Now if India fail to make the semi finals after getting special treatment then that's on them.

Presumably India starting later means they play their games in a smaller window with less recovery time between games?

Brazil is a good comparison, which does make it all the funnier when they concede 7 or crash out to Belgium. It would be the same with India, though I don't see them not making the semi finals

So what did we learn from the banana skin fall ? Praiseworthy effort from Root and Buttler to come back from a difficult position to make a victory actually possible up until the last couple of overs ; but I think it also shows that if you are going to chase down really big targets a strong start is vital : you can have all the depth in the world but if you've lost a number of wickets early on it only takes a couple of errors to derail even a very promising chase. Doesn't help that Moeen is out of sorts with the bat : when he's on song he can do the required job at seven very well but coming in and almost instantly putting your scoring into top gear is not something an out of form batsman is likely to achieve too often. Moving Woakes up one might well be a good call but you still risk the same problem if those early wickets go down...
Many of England's recent big scores come on the back of a terrific opening partnership from Roy and Bairstow ...now we see the tactic of starting with spin is going to be used by a few teams and so far it has worked to prevent that opening stand from taking place. Hope they can adjust.
Fielding was bad but surely that's just a glitch. Lord knows what caused the epidemic of minor errors - Roy just had a bad day which can happen to anyone. Expect they'll be back to normal next game. Will need to be as they won't want to drop any more games to these "minor" teams before they encounter the main rivals.
Bowling was underwhelming : maybe not "bad" - though Woakes won't want to watch back some of his overs - but really apart from Moeen and Wood none of them were very impressive. Archer is a very promising talent but he's not the Messiah. Rashid is presumably not quite comfortable in his return from injury : hope he gets it together soon because he really is important especially on lifeless pitches . They have options ; but they simply aren't going to match some of the other teams for bowling. They'll do the job most times as long as the outstanding batting lineup performs but I doubt they'll be knocking anyone over for 150.
I do wonder if there wasn't just a touch of complacency going into this game against a team they'd beaten all over the country a few weeks ago ? And the apparent assumption that picking their fastest bowers would ensure they could replicate West Indies' demolition of Pakistan might have led to some ill planned bowling tactics .Or it may have been just poor execution :either way , it didn't work.
Just slightly concerned to hear Morgan say he didn't think it was too bad : losing to a team who hasn't won a match against anyone for months strikes me as pretty awful ; but I suspect that was just for public consumption (he even used that dreadful phrase "taking the positives ") and I'm sure they will be judging themselves more harshly
back in the dressing room.

Looking for a bounce back against Bangladesh. Probably a good thing the latter's win over SA ensures England are unlikely to take them lightly...

some chinks in Eng that I hope Indian team has taken note off:
1-their top order is reluctant to go after spin....espcially if there is some grip in the pitch
Pak missed a trick by not bowling a few more overs of Hafeez / Malik, esp the latter

2-If you have a 90mph pacer...gun for the heads of Moeen, Rashid & Wood...they might waft their bat and connect a shot or two in desperation but will fall sooner.

On Afg-Lanka......SL off to a great start. and Afg struggling

Do you mean Woakes not Wood? Or are India so meticulous in their preparation they'll be interested in analysing how best to bowl to Mark Wood? I suppose he did make a Test 50 once, so in the 90s would have probably batted at 7 as the all rounder

VTR wrote:Do you mean Woakes not Wood? Or are India so meticulous in their preparation they'll be interested in analysing how best to bowl to Mark Wood? I suppose he did make a Test 50 once, so in the 90s would have probably batted at 7 as the all rounder

I meant Wood
and actually I implied Moeen downwards all the way to Wood.... everyone's head should be targeted by India
With the exception of woakes.....who is almost like an organized top order batsman

OK, doubt he's worth having specific plans for though. I'd have thought short ball at Woakes is a decent plan, he's definitely been targeted in Tests with it

Afghanistan conceding 19 extras in the first 8 overs, not doing themselves any favours.

Galted wrote:Afghanistan conceding 19 extras in the first 8 overs, not doing themselves any favours.

Dawlat and Hassan very poor first up with the ball - all over the place in fact.

I dont think Wood and Rashid had any choice but to waft bats...by that point they required rate was so high they couldn't afford to just let them go.
Wood is no mug with the bat, he can put those away.

As for Moeen you just need to bowl and hes going to struggle currently.

But having accurate 90mph bouncers and Yorkers for the closing overs is going to be valuable against any players.

Won't be a major factor ...it is unlikely England's last three will get to the crease in time to play a meaningful part very often. And if they do they're probably not going to be able to do much anyway.
Moeen is another matter : everyone targets his head anyway - and the way he's batting at the moment it makes little difference where they bowl to him ! Not in a good way

This is embarassing from Gulbadin - three no balls overstepping in 4 overs is unacceptable

But it's also a disgrace that more small teams arent allowed in the world cup right.

Dale Steyn out of the world cup and maybe international cricket as his dodgy shoulder hasn't recovered

Cricket South Africa: Dale Steyn has suffered a second shoulder injury which has not responded to treatment and has ruled him out of bowling for the foreseeable future. Beuran Hendricks to replace him. #WorldCup2019

Not watching ....but by the look of score board Mohd Nabi seems like bowling handgrenades

Haha this is great Afghanistan have been village level for 21 overs and all of a sudden have 4 wickets in two overs with some fantastic bowling. Fantastic cricket!

Is it legit fantastic bowling or just Sri Lanka being that bad they could end up being 159-6 against a village team thats shipped 31 extras in 27 overs?

The annoying thing is both teams will probably switch on just for the England game

Sri Lanka won't make 500 now. You heard it here first

Too many high scoring games in this world cup.

Lunch now ...20 overs, TMS reckon a restart around 5:45 should be OK to complete a game. Itll be very much in Afghanistans hands if it is a revised 20ish overs target

Listening to Vaughn and Billings from yesterday they seem to think that Moeen is gods gift to batting and one shot away from becoming the new Flintotham again, citing his IPL form (which to be fair was pretty good). I do agree he cant really be dropped but he is hatefully inconsistent and has been problematic for a number of England totals recently. Theres times you're glad to see his wicket go down.

Afghan look well set to win this comfortably. Sri Lanka are appalling

65/5, enthralling contest so far.

Afganistan really needed Shahzad and Hazrattullah to bat through 15-20 overs to make the game safe. They got off to a flyer then just needed to get the head down.

Gulbadin, Najibullah and Rashid are going to need to do the damage from here if Afghanistan are going to get there. Run rate is no issue though.

To be fair thisnmatchbhas had endless twists and by far the most unpredictable....but that's not really through brilliant or smart play for the most part. Its presumably pretty alien conditions for the Afghanis in particular ( although maybe they've had days like this in Ireland?) but the snippets I've caught and commentaries suggest it makes englads display yesterday look professional ...and my prediction that Surrey would come last look shaky

I am reminded of gold old days of world-cups in 1983, 87 and 1992 when Lanka used to be the lowest ranked test side and deemed a walkover

Except if they ever gotta play minnows Zim ( like in 1992), they would be favorites.
else SL & Zim would be placed in different groups for balance .

SL has regressed to those 1983-92 levels and Afg is the Zim equivalent.

Afg's best chance chance of winning would be against Pak if by that time pak has no chance of qualifying left

Another observation I have is on Malinga....fat, pot-bellied....only about 60% of his peak and yet holds his place in ODIs in addtion to commanding a price in IPL
tells you how fast and potent he was at his peak

Reduced overs, far too many extras from both sides, some poor batting as expected, but at the end of the day, the most unpredictable game of this WC with more twists and turns than the last 6 games put together. Was really hoping the Afghans would make it through, but Sri Lanka did just enough to get away with yet another pathetic batting performance. Pradeep was very good and Old man Slinga showed the value of his experience at the end.
Najibullah played a good hand, and the skipper, like in the Australia game built a good partnership with him, but got out at the wrongest moment just like in that game. Who are Afghanistan's back-up bats? The likes of Shahidi aren't quite cutting it. What happened to Asgar Afghan the former skipper who was in the squad?

Agree with KPF, this was Afghanistan's best chance. I wouldn't put it pass them to knock over a side in this tournament, but they missed their best opportunity.
Its a bit strange. When Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka or even Bangladesh were emerging, their bowling was pretty mediocre. Even now those sides don't have very strong bowling units. But Afghanistan, unlike any associate side during their times there, had fast bowlers who could bowl proper fast and spinners who could actually spin it. But even after joining the full member club, their batting remain pretty poor for anything beyond 20 overs.

Looking ahead, India opening the campaign tomorrow, and as others have already said, the reasoning for the strange scheduling seems downright stupid!
South Africa are really struggling, and have received another blow as Dale Steyn is ruled out of the tournament. Think that's his ODI career done unfortunately. With Lungi Ngidi also injured, they have far too many problems. What that might also mean is as the South African skipper pointed out, they might get back to a more traditional South African combination. They may take the the park tomorrow with all 3 all-rounders, Pretorius, Morris and Phehlukwayo. None of them are anywhere near the Kallis/Pollock/Klusener league, but it does give them greater batting depth. Amla should also be back for tomorrow. And its a do or die moment for South Africa. A side like Pakistan might come back from played 3 lost 3 to lift the title, but you really don't associate something like that with South Africa.

10 overs bowling and 50 in the field might be a bit much for the fat Malinga but he can still chuck down a handful of overs with a decent degree of accuracy and genuine pace. The unusual action is always going to give him that x factor too ...but as with Gayle ( and Wahab to be honest) it would be no shock if he fell apart before the end of the cup and its surely his last. That he can be so far out of shape, only pretend to field, and still picked no question is maybe also a sign of just how bad sri lankas production line has become. Its a bit different with Gayle who so far has defied all expectation and scored as many runs at as good a pace as he ever did at his peak ...despite his weight and laziness he demands a place on merit.
Malinga might have terrorised Afghanistani batsmen who arent used to facing real pace or his action, but he went for 9 an over with no wickets against NZ. Hes had a handful of good hauls (including mauling in England in one of the tour games there) but has only taken 4+ wickets twice in ODIS since 2014 (and hes played a lot!) .... he did it 3 times in that year alone. Hes long past his best at this level.

As others have said this was surely both teams best chance of a win. Its not impossible that one of the star bowlers could get any side in a pickle and enable a surprise, but the gulf in quality of players has been exposed.

Still we wait for a genuinely good game, Pakistan India could be fun if the right Pakistan turn up. Aus England should have plenty of pantomime. New Zealand Aus should be a cracker. And anything involving the west indies when they are trying could be explosive and full of passion.
Tomorrows games look pretty comfortable for India and NZ, but neither is a given. A Bangladesh win in particular would blow things wide open.

Will be interesting as to how Kohli would go in with the combination. Will it be Rahul or Shankar at 4? Kohli has indicated that Rahul has done enough to earn the spot for the time being with his performances in the warmups, but you just can't trust Virat with team combinations, it may turn out that neither Rahul nor Shankar would make it, it could be DK instead who would duely fail!
Would Jadhav make it or would it be Jadeja? Jadeja too did alright in the warm-ups. Kuldeep's been struggling a bit since IPL. India can go with only Chahal, and pick a 3rd seamer possibly Kumar in his place, bat Pandya at 6, Jadeja 7 and Bhuvi 8. I would go with
Rohit
Dhawan
Kohli
Rahul
Dhoni
Pandya
Jadeja
Kumar
Shami
Chahal
Bumrah
Would not mind at all if its Jadhav for jadeja, in that case, also depending on the match situation, would have him batting 6 and Hardik 7.

Malinga is there just because there is nobody better that they can turn to. He's a shadow of his former self is pretty clear, but then who else? Most of the Lankan seamers over the years other than Vaas and Malinga have been rather mediocre, and if at all they managed to chance upon a decent one, it is a given that he would join the injury list and miss far more games than what he would play. Pradeep himself is a good example.

Gooseberry wrote:10 overs bowling and 50 in the field might be a bit much for the fat Malinga but he can still chuck down a handful of overs with a decent degree of accuracy and genuine pace. The unusual action is always going to give him that x factor too ...but as with Gayle ( and Wahab to be honest) it would be no shock if he fell apart before the end of the cup and its surely his last. That he can be so far out of shape, only pretend to field, and still picked no question is maybe also a sign of just how bad sri lankas production line has become. Its a bit different with Gayle who so far has defied all expectation and scored as many runs at as good a pace as he ever did at his peak ...despite his weight and laziness he demands a place on merit.
Malinga might have terrorised Afghanistani batsmen who arent used to facing real pace or his action, but he went for 9 an over with no wickets against NZ. Hes had a handful of good hauls (including mauling in England in one of the tour games there) but has only taken 4+ wickets twice in ODIS since 2014 (and hes played a lot!) .... he did it 3 times in that year alone. Hes long past his best at this level.

As others have said this was surely both teams best chance of a win. Its not impossible that one of the star bowlers could get any side in a pickle and enable a surprise, but the gulf in quality of players has been exposed.

Still we wait for a genuinely good game, Pakistan India could be fun if the right Pakistan turn up. Aus England should have plenty of pantomime. New Zealand Aus should be a cracker. And anything involving the west indies when they are trying could be explosive and full of passion.
Tomorrows games look pretty comfortable for India and NZ, but neither is a given. A Bangladesh win in particular would blow things wide open.

msp83 wrote:Will be interesting as to how Kohli would go in with the combination. Will it be Rahul or Shankar at 4? Kohli has indicated that Rahul has done enough to earn the spot for the time being with his performances in the warmups, but you just can't trust Virat with team combinations, it may turn out that neither Rahul nor Shankar would make it, it could be DK instead who would duely fail!
Would Jadhav make it or would it be Jadeja? Jadeja too did alright in the warm-ups. Kuldeep's been struggling a bit since IPL. India can go with only Chahal, and pick a 3rd seamer possibly Kumar in his place, bat Pandya at 6, Jadeja 7 and Bhuvi 8. I would go with
Rohit
Dhawan
Kohli
Rahul
Dhoni
Pandya
Jadeja
Kumar
Shami
Chahal
Bumrah
Would not mind at all if its Jadhav for jadeja, in that case, also depending on the match situation, would have him batting 6 and Hardik 7.

1-Dhawan
2-Rohit
3-kohli
4-Rahul
5-Dhoni
6-Jadhav
7-Pandya
8-Kuldeep
9-shami
10-chahl
11-Bumrah

this is the 11 India will go for
This has tail starting at 8 ...and we will be exposed if chasing 300+
If you replace shami with Bhuvi...you get 20 more runs worth batting.....BUT I think Shami is at the peak of his game and a yard faster....and so unless and until batting gets exposed we should start with and continue with shami

That tail is quite a thing isnt it, pandya a fast scorer but unreliable, and Bhuvi isnt at all...he only averages 15 in ODIs ....hes really not worth 20 extra runs no matter how bad Shami is!
A lot of pressure in that top order to score big and bat for time, but a fi e collection of bowlers. We've seen more help for spinners than might have been expected an low scoring games which could suit India.

It's cool today but both games should be dry with more sun lanter. Although teams so far have chosen to bowl first I'm wondering if both Asian teams might fancy bowling second today given the choice.

Have to back India despite the tail. SA have similar issues and less quality through the team. The biggest plus for them is knowing how the pitches play and India maybe a bit lacking sharpness after sitting watching TV for so long. Whether Jadeja or both checkers play it's hard to see SA having learnt how to play spinners overnight. They'll be fired up and it's a must win for them ...but India surely the big favourites.