World Cup 2015 Thread

Glenn Maxwell is proving to be a consistent big hitter. It's impossible to keep all those Aussie batsmen quiet - although New Zealand did a great job last week. Sangakkara is a great player, but he looks pedestrian by comparison. England don't have enough of these players. Of those capable of these feats on occasions, Hales doesn't play enough and Buttler doesn't get enough time at the crease.

 

Australia beat Sri Lanka by 64 runs in Sydney
Australia 376 for 9 (Maxwell 102, Smith 72, Clarke 68, Watson 67) - Sri Lanka 312 (Sangakkara 104, Dilshan 62, Chandimal 52 retired hurt, Faulkner 3-48)

 

This tournament ain't half dragging on, should be at least 2 games per day, 3 or 4 would make it feel a bit more like the football world cup.

 

England doing a classic English run chase, might get there, might not. Any other top side would have blasted this total off.

 

Why oh why is Buttler coming at No7, he has to force his game as Bell & Root at the top of the order think they are playing test cricket looking at their run rate, England are horrible to watch at the moment. The line up and batting order is all wrong, forget what has gone before, we miss Pietersen in this side, and why is Stokes not in there as well. Morgan needs a break, perhaps he could be 'injured' for the Afghan game to give him that much needed break, he is a good player but horribly out of form.

 

Bangladesh win.

Hands up who's surprised?

Didn't think so.

 

England really are playing a different game to the rest.

Batting - 300 i.e a run a ball is the best they are likely to achieve on a good day, yet it is under par for the big teams now. 300 is achieved by the old fashioned method of keeping wickets in hand and having a blast at the end. In the middle overs, they are content to consolidate and score at a strike rate of 60 whereas de Villiers or Maxwell can score at 200+, even 300! Buttler is held back for those last ten overs and faces only a handful of deliveries as a result. This strategy is from the dark ages and means that England are always behind the rate. Increasingly, the 50 over game is becoming an elongated 20/20 match. A team will score 500 before long. 400 is easily within reach of most on a good wicket and they can canter to 300.

Bowling - England have no variation and bowl too many balls to contain, not take wickets. You can't contain if you don't take wickets - see above. We've seen Southee, Boult and Starc bowl like Test Match bowlers and take wickets. You need skills which threaten the batsman's wicket - pace, swing or mystery spin. You can't try to bowl fast medium line and length and hope to restrict the scoring. Bowl that at McCullum and he'll come down the wicket and smack every ball for six as Finn found out.

 

The person I feel sorry for is Bopara, if it had been him walking on instead of Morgan we would have won that game. I expect that few weeks of bench warming will be his last World Cup.

 

We will have to qualify via maintaining a top 8 ranking, if not it's playoffs, I believe that's how it works.

 

You can't have England playing at altitude on top of everything else - what chance then?

 

Here are the cold hard facts:
Bangladesh beat England by 15 runs in Adelaide
Bangladesh 275 for 7 (Mahmudullah 103, Mushfiqur 89) - England 260 (Buttler 65, Bell 63, Rubel 4-53)
England fail to qualify

 

Wow is that true or is someone taking the piss?

 

Surprised to see the European Champions are getting hammered by this easily beatable Indian team.

 

India beat Ireland by 8 wickets in Hamilton with 79 balls remaining
India 260 for 2 (Dhawan 100, Rohit 64) - Ireland 259 (N O'Brien 75, Porterfield 67, Shami 3-41)

 

It's going to be very tight between Pakistan, Ireland and the West Indies for the 3rd and 4th qualifying places in Group . But Ireland will have to beat Pakistan or net run rate will do them.