England are a joke and have been on the one day side of things as long as I remember. Watching this game is embarrassing. Ali is one of the worst openers I have seen, rather see hales there. We have too many sluggish players who cannot score quickly. We lost this game when aus went past 250. We are 10 years off the pace.
New Zealand beat Sri Lanka by 98 runs in Group A at Christchurch New Zealand 331 for 6 (Anderson 75, McCullum 65, Williamson 57, Mendis 2-5) - Sri Lanka 233 (Thirimanne 65, Anderson 2-18)
Hard to disagree with the comments about England - was always going to be tough against Australia, but there is losing with a bit of pride and getting battered - looks like the latter!
Bell is the only batsman to put his hand up. He was a tad unlucky, the rest have been hapless. The ECB is run by too many public school twats and needs a total reshuffle! Giving Moore another chance was bad enough. Dropping KP because he obviously questioned them too much.
Australia have played well, but it is so easy for them to look absolutely brilliant against a shower of sh!te. Morgan. What can I say? Comes in at a time when he needs to play a good, steady, captain's innings and guess what - another duck. Field placings and use of bowlers suspect, but then the bowlers obviously hadn't put any thought into what they were going to bowl. After this world cup hope we never see Morgan again. And as for the idiots that run the game, shooting them isn't enough.
Australia beat England by 111 runs at the MCG Australia 342 for 9 (Finch 135, Maxwell 66, Bailey 55, Finn 5-71) - England 231 (Taylor 98*, Marsh 5-33) It does not look any better the next day does it? Two crumbs of comfort - James Taylor's 98 and Steven Finn's hatrick
All the big teams have posted 300+ in their first matches. Muddled England wouldn't get 300 if it was 60 overs per side. England don't have enough match winners with bat or ball. Scoring a swashbuckling hundred once every 30,40 or 50 innings like Morgan or Buttler doesn't compare to the likes of de Villiers, Finch, Warner etc, who do it regularly. And what's going on in the selectors heads? Ballance suddenly arrives and is picked for no.3 when he didn't seem to part of their plans at all. Taylor who was earmarked for no.3 finishes up at no.6, which means Bopara is in/out/in/out of the side again like he has been for ten years. Rubbish.
India beat Pakistan by 76 runs in Adelaide India 300 for 7 (Kohli 107, Raina 74, Dhawan 73, Sohail 5-55) - Pakistan 224 (Misbah 76, Shehzad 47, Shami 4-35)
South Africa beat Zimbabwe by 62 runs in Hamilton South Africa 339 for 4 (Miller 138*, Duminy 115*) - Zimbabwe 277 (Masakadza 80, Chibhabha 64, Tahir 3-36)
Ireland beat West Indies by 4 wickets in Nelson Ireland 307 for 6 (Stirling 92, Joyce 84, N O'Brien 79*) - West Indies 304 for 7 (Simmons 102, Sammy 89, Dockrell 3-50) And we thought English cricket was in a state - take nothing away from Ireland but West Indies off the field "actions" have hindered them hugely
New Zealand beat Scotland by three wickets in Dunedin New Zealand 146 for 7 (Williamson 38, Davey 3-40, Wardlaw 3-57) - Scotland 142 (Machan 56, Berrington 50, Anderson 3-18, Vettori 3-24)
Bangladesh beat Afghanistan by 105 runs in Canberra Bangladesh 267 (Mushfiqur 71, Shakib 63, Shapoor 2-20) - Afghanistan 162 (Nabi 44, Mashrafe 3-20)
Zimbabwe beat UAE by 4 wickets in Nelson Zimbabwe 286 for 6 (Williams 76, Taylor 47) - UAE 285 for 7 (Anwar 67, Khurram 45, Chatara 3-42)
in the unlikely event that the boot had been on the other foot, England would have nudged and nurdled their way to the target at 3 runs per over. Not New Zealand. What an incredible show of his team's power by McCullum.
Appalling cricket. The worst cricket management ever. Blame the players first, then the captain and the management first. Downton is responsible for this.
New Zealand beat England by eight wickets in Wellington New Zealand 125 for 2 (McCullum 77) - England 123 (Root 46, Southee 7-33) I know New Zealand are ranked as one of the favourites, but we did not even give them a game
