World Cup 2019, Days 7-10: New Zealand and India are the Early Pace-setters

 

World Cup 2019

Days 7-10: New Zealand and India are the Early Pace-setters

June 9^th 2019

After the War of Dhoni’s Gloves, India have shown that they are warriors not to be despised on the pitch too. In the past we have had England’s footballers threatened with sanctions for wearing a poppy to honour the dead of two World Wars, now were have had Dhoni told not to wear gloves that show his justifiable pride in being an officer in the Indian Army Reserve. While the gloves may seem provocative to Pakistanis, no one should be offended by them when India are playing other sides. Whatever the reasons, the gloves came off today, both literally and metaphorically and Australia were beaten by a far wider margin than the final difference of 36 runs suggests: Australia were always chasing the game and looked extremely lack-lustre for much of it.

While India started very cautiously, they knew that the Australian change bowling was nowhere near as strong as the opening attack, giving an object-lesson in running-up a score. Wickets were conserved and the run-rate increased steadily until the final charge that took the score well beyond anything that the Australians were going to chase down without some special effort. A target of 353 to win meant setting a new World Cup record. Although Australia did not lose early wickets either, they were always struggling to keep up. David Warner played a laboured innings and, by 20 overs, and 19 behind Duckworth-Lewis, the writing was on the wall. The Indian spinners stifled the innings and the batsmen failed to show any urgency until the Required Run Rate demanded suicidal risks, at which point wickets tumbled in a heap. With defeat already certain, hardly a shot was played in anger for the last three overs.

All in all, it was an Indian performance that should worry the Hosts and some of the other sides with ambitions to win.

We have now had fourteen matches and qualification is almost one-third through. New Zealand lead the way, with a huge Net Run Rate advantage, but the cynics would say that Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were possibly the three easiest matches of the tournament for them. New Zealand’s next game is against India and will give a good idea as to just how competitive they are against really strong opposition, as these are the last two unbeaten sides in the tournament.

The tournament enters a slight lull for the next couple of days. Tomorrow, South Africa play the West Indies in the last chance saloon, otherwise known as Southampton. While, on Tuesday, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh play what is almost a knock-out match. If Bangladesh lose, they will be all but out, while Sri Lanka have looked extremely weak so far and vulnerable to early elimination. Wednesday sees Australia play Pakistan in another match that neither side can afford to lose.

So far, we have had just one, classic match. Australia sneaked home against the West Indies in a game that, quite probably, they should have lost. Had they shown the same fighting spirit against India, the match would have been much closer. The West Indies had Australia on the rack at least three times, but somehow allowed them to escape in a low-scoring contest.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan were unfortunate to be washed-out by the same storm that has caused huge disruption to the French Open Tennis in Paris, a result that will have done the hopes of neither much good. And England… a huge win against Bangladesh suggests that, whatever went wrong against Pakistan, the side is still one to be feared, putting up by some way the largest score of the tournament so far. Cynics might say that “it was only Bangladesh”, but this is a Bangladesh side that had beaten them at the last two tournaments and one showing far more confidence and nous than previous Bangladeshi sides have done. England’s 386-6 was unusual in one respect: normally England set out to score heavily in the first few overs; on this occasion they reached a massive total having blocked-out the first five overs. As India did against Australia, the openers started slowly and accelerated steadily and, finally, brutally. You can criticise England for not finishing-off the game quicker but, perhaps, it is fairer to praise Shakib for an innings as brilliant as it was defiant; 219-4 before he fell to a rejuvenated Ben Stokes and still, just about in the game, Bangladesh’s last six wickets fell for 61.

England are still not firing at 100%: there is concern about the bowling of Adil Rashid and Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali is off-colour, but to win big when firing at only 80% should give other sides pause for thought.

However, even if Australia beat Pakistan and India beat New Zealand, New Zealand’s Net Run Rate advantage is so huge that they are almost certain to top the table still going into the weekend matches. By Sunday night though, the qualification picture for the Semi-Finals will be clearing up fast, with the challengers for qualification down to half a dozen.