Australia played 2 tough teams. Playing Sri Lanka tomorrow that you’d expect them to win. Assume they win that and SA beat Netherlands and you have a clear top 3 on 6/6 then Pakistan on 4/6 and then England australia on 2. Then the rest who’s you’d expect to not really challenge. May come down to results in tht 3 team mini league of Australia England Pakistan. Win 2 of those goes long way to getting through.
the aussies problem is they've lost those and given two other teams the advantage over them that hard to make up. I would expect a clear top 3 now as you've said and the rest are chasing. I really don't think chasing is a good place to be here so maybe someone will catch one of the teams that are up there later on as they are through. who knows.
the world cup is mildly interesting so far. I think theres been few enough really high scoring ding dongs. Pakistan v Australia, south africa v sri lanka, Paksitan v sri lanka England got 364 v bangladesh a week ago and a few other one sided games. Is this a case of better bowling, more difficult conditions or just too many poor teams in the world cup who can't cope? When I look at the 10 sides We see 3 contenders soon to be on 6 points and then Sri lanka feeling very sorry for themselves on 0 having batted well but conceded big and netherlands who shouldn't be there. In reality Netherland, afghanistan and bangladesh are a bit of a joke and its like the rugby world cup. The fast WI couldn't even get here says it all about their implosion. Having such a large single pool and then only semi finals seems silly to me. The worlds best will play for a full month but it'll boil down to a one off game middle of novemebr i na semi and then a one of final? Surely you make this a shorter set of 4 seeded groups, let in a few more **** teams to make up the 16 and then have two legged QF, SF and a massive final. I'd rather watch the top 8 of the world play off much earleir than be bored by a lot of these games. 200 to 250 odd scores is 4 and 5 and over territory.
SA 44-4 chasing 246 which should have been about 150 barring a couple brilliant lower order partnerships. Could easily be a shock here
crazy. they saltsrted as normal the went to sleep and let Netherlands score about 100 more than initially they should have based on the start and then promptly collapsed. it does look line the team batting first seems to get the best of conditions? there's something quite odd about a bunch of absolute no hopers teeing off and getting a half decent score then the proper big gun losing lots of wickets.
Was like watching England in the ashes at times. Get down to numbers 7-11 and suddenly forget how to bowl or try be too clever rather than just bowling balls that get good batsmen out. Netherlands bowled well though. I think different pitches seem to be helping first or second innings. Butler said in last game they expected dew to come out more and affect Afghan spinners but didn’t happen. SA/Neth game was up north so don’t know if the rain slowed the pitch down even more?
NZ are batting first v Afghanistan today. If england were done by "good bowling" then the afghans should hold NZ to a reasonable score. (<300) If its down to conditions then NZ should put on 350 easily here. It'll be interesting to see if Afghanistan can chase in the second innings later on.
Afghans all over them early on but dropped 2 early chances soafter scoring slowly NZ suddenly speeded up but having just lost 3 wkts in 9 deliveries now 113-4 after 22 so game on
288/6 another <300 score based on a slow start then a mid innings collapse and recovery. it'll be interesting to see how conditions are affecting this as afghans chose to bowl here so they must be expecting the best bowling conditions are passed? A better side skittles NZ with the amount of mistakes i'm hearing about.
Afghanistan were good apart from their catching or more specifically dropping . Could easily kept them to less than 250 if they had taken just the straightforward chances they dropped
Would you think its conditions being difficult to bat in or the fact that afghansitan will have more spin bowling emphasis suiting the pithces here? I see NZ are softening them up already.
I think it was a bit of zipper bowlers as well. it was instantly harder from the off for the Afghanistan team.
india v bangladesh in pune Bangladesh bat first. 181/5 after 38 overs. Another 250 is posisble (seems par) It will be interesting to see if india piss through that as second innings batters or have some issues.
So Nz and India with 4/4 almost look certain to finish top 4 now. Looks like it’s now 4 into the remaining 2 thanks to SA’s defeat. England still have to play all 3 of those plus India Netherlands and Sri Lanka. You’d expect them to beat the later 2 and lose v India. So likely come down to the games against those other 3. Win those 3 and put yourself in great position. SA 4 Pakistan 4 England 2 Aus 2
Pakistan win toss and put Australia in to bat. an interesting development here. let's see if the expected conditions later emerge.
