Good win today. Our bowling improved as their innings progressed and the batsmen, Roy aside, never looked in any trouble. It's a minor quibble but I did wonder if we could have accelerated a little earlier in the chase. Our batsmen looked very comfortable and we're in a tough group where net run rate could still be a factor. Still, good to get off to a winning start.
Starting with a win is good, especially as two teams from the group go through. I was surprised that we were pretty level with Bangladesh's innings until the end....guess the last match against SA burnt us and the team wanted to secure a win.
Rain delays Australia's innings against the Kiwi's . I had hoped the Kiwi's would stuff them out of sight , but I don't think 291 will be enough sadly .
Listening to the first hour of the match it sounded as if we were going to be lucky to get to 250 but thankfully batting conditions became considerably easier. Brilliant from Ervine, gritty from Adams. Dug in when needed, provided the anchor for the innings. Could do with him speeding up tomorrow though.
Solid enough, and a brilliant partnership of course. An extra 40 runs would have been nice, but I'll accept the RR given just three wickets down. Tough to know where this innings will end up. The next four guys can all bat, but these two are the final of our proper frontline batsmen. We could turn 293 into 550. Or into 360. Either way, I can't see us losing from here now. I'm intrigued to see how Salisbury goes when it comes to it. I know he's taken a fair few wickets for the 2nds recently (and Fidel, Wheal, Stevenson and Wood are all injured), but I was quite shocked yesterday morning to see him selected. Topley hasn't been great this season, yes, but the guy is young and has hardly bowled in 18 months. But all the best to Salisbury, hopefully he takes his chance.
Yes, but we can't take too much time out of the game. We need to be bowling by 5pm today at the latest. We should be aiming to score 150 before lunch. If we take too long scoring the runs we will end up drawing. We can afford to take some risks going for the win.
Even if we go at a rather standard 100 runs per over, we'll get to 550 come 5pm. (And in reality you'd expect the RR to increase during that time, meaning that either we'd get to 550 before then, or we'd have more than 550 on the board come then) No need to accelerate so early in the day. As I say, the next four guys can all bat - but equally you wouldn't be surprised with four single-figure scores.
