2023 ODI World Cup digest: New Zealand continue perfect start, England face early crunch game

The Men’s 2023 ODI World Cup is underway in India and will run from October 5 until November 19. Each morning we will round up the latest action and news from the event and bring you insights from our reporters on the ground.

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Top Story: Five-star Santner and New Zealand’s batters make it two in two

New Zealand’s innings started with three maidens in a row but ended with them bashing 50 off the last three overs, courtesy Tom Latham, Mitchell Santner and Matt Henry, which propelled them to 322. Netherlands started the chase slowly and never shifted gears as they folded for 223, as New Zealand further consolidated their position at the top of the points table after making it two in two.

Player-of-the-Match Santner, who clubbed an unbeaten 36 from 17 balls with the bat, then grabbed 5 for 59 with the ball, and in the process became the first New Zealand spinner to claim a five-for in a men’s ODI World Cup. He varied his pace consistently on a spin-friendly pitch – exactly the trait which makes him threatening – as the highlight of all his wickets was that of Scott Edwards’.

Match analysis: New Zealand’s problems of plenty

New Zealand came into the tournament with only 12 of their 15-player squad available for the first game, with Kane Williamson and Tim Southee recovering from serious injuries and Lockie Ferguson suffering back stiffness. By the time they play their next match, on Friday, they should have all 15 players available and the performance against Netherlands could help them decide who to pick.

Let’s start with the obvious: when captain Williamson is ready for competitive cricket, he’ll slot straight back in at No. 3, which would ordinarily leave room for only two of Devon Conway, Will Young and Rachin Ravindra. All three have put good numbers on the board at this tournament, Young becoming the latest to do so. He came back from a second-ball duck against England to score his sixth half-century this year and third in six innings, making a strong claim to continue as an opener.

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Match preview

Bangladesh vs England, Dharamsala (10.30am IST; 6.00am GMT; 4.00pm AEDT)

Six matches down, 42 to come… it’s too soon to form any broad judgements about the destiny of the 2023 World Cup. However, as England’s chastened cricketers head for the tournament’s highest peak in Dharamsala, they do so with clear reason to doubt their readiness to scale the heights that they conquered so memorably on home soil four years ago.

It’s not that Jos Buttler‘s men cannot bounce back from that unfathomably vast drubbing against New Zealand in Ahmedabad. Resilience has been an under-appreciated feature of the champion team that they have built up over the past eight years – perhaps never better demonstrated than in their backs-to-the-wall escape from the group stage in 2019.

Bangladesh (possible): 1 Tanzid Hasan, 2 Litton Das, 3 Najmul Hossain Shanto, 4 Shakib Al Hasan (capt), 5 Towhid Hridoy, 6 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 7 Mehidy Hasan Miraz, 8 Mahmudullah/Mahedi Hasan, 9 Taskin Ahmed, 10 Shoriful Islam, 11 Mustafizur Rahman

England (possible): 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Dawid Malan, 3 Joe Root, 4 Harry Brook, 5 Jos Buttler (capt & wk), 6 Liam Livingstone, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Mark Wood, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Reece Topley.

Pakistan vs Sri Lanka, Hyderabad (2pm IST; 8.30pm GMT; 7.30pm AEDT)

Both sides have played one game in this World Cup, have shaken hands and introduced themselves to this World Cup. Neither has quite made the best first impression, but Pakistan have two points and a win pinned to their lapel, while Sri Lanka remain unadorned at the points table. The mitigating circumstance, of course, is that Pakistan played Netherlands and still looked shaky during certain passages of play, while Sri Lanka took on a South African batting juggernaut, and for a while gave as good as they got in a frenetic, if ultimately unsuccessful, chase.

Team news

Pakistan (possible) 1 Abdullah Shafique, 2 Imam-ul-Haq, 3 Babar Azam (capt), 4 Mohammad Rizwan (wk), 5 Saud Shakeel, 6 Iftikhar Ahmed, 7 Shadab Khan, 8 Mohammad Nawaz, 9 Hasan Ali, 10 Shaheen Shah Afridi, 11 Haris Rauf

Sri Lanka (possible) 1 Pathum Nissanka, 2 Kusal Perera, 3 Kusal Mendis (wk), 4 Sadeera Samarawickrama, 5 Charith Asalanka, 6 Dhananjaya de Silva, 7 Dasun Shanaka (capt), 8 Dunith Wellalage, 9 Maheesh Theekshana, 10 Matheesha Pathirana, 11 Dilshan Madushanka

Feature: Bairstow, England cricket’s ‘great servant’ who always comes back very strong

Jonny Bairstow will win his 100th ODI cap for England when they play Bangladesh in Dharamsala on Tuesday. It is an achievement he said will make him “immensely proud” and a milestone in a journey he acknowledged has not always been easy: “There’s been a few ups and downs, hasn’t there?”

It has been a career of two halves in this format. Bairstow found things difficult during his first six years as an ODI cricketer, spending three years out of the side after his first seven appearances and then forcing his way into the squad more regularly, generally as batting cover for the first-choice side.