Sunday, October 20

Tag: ICC Cricket World Cup

Match Preview – India vs New Zealand, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 1st Semi-Final
14Nov By adminNo Comments
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Match Preview – India vs New Zealand, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 1st Semi-Final

Big picture: Big stakesFirst, the unstoppable force. India are having the World Cup of their wildest dreams and it has nothing to do with the fact they are undefeated in it. That is merely a byproduct of their planning leading into the tournament. They left 2019 needing… more. So they went out searching, trying as many as 50 different players across four years and 66 matches. Six months out from the showpiece, they had identified who they wanted and were focused on sharpening their skills. In the 15 ODIs between March and October 2023, they were picking all of their XIs from a set of 24.The chosen ones were given all the support they needed to live up to their full potential, which is why Suryakumar Yadav finally looks like he belongs in ODI cricket. Off the field, India were doing even b...
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Recent Match Report – Australia vs Bangladesh 43rd Match 2023/24
11Nov By adminNo Comments
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Recent Match Report – Australia vs Bangladesh 43rd Match 2023/24

Australia 307 for 2 (Marsh 177*, Smith 63*, Warner 51) beat Bangladesh 306 for 8 (Hridoy 74, Shanto 45, Zampa 2-32, Abbott 2-61) by eight wicketsAustralia's aversion to chasing has disappeared ahead of a semi-final with old foes South Africa after a statement innings of 177 not out from Mitchell Marsh at No.3 helped his side cruise to their second-successive record World Cup chase against Bangladesh in Pune, running down 307 with eight wickets and 32 balls to spare.Marsh made his highest ODI score and his first century at first drop, thumping 177 off 132 balls with 17 fours and nine sixes in brutal fashion.Australia had only chased more than 300 once in the last four years, but the rejigged batting line-up finally clicked with Steven Smith making an untroubled, unbeaten 63 at No.4 and sha...
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Match Preview – England vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 44th Match
10Nov By adminNo Comments
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Match Preview – England vs Pakistan, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 44th Match

Big picture: Pakistan chasing the almost impossibleSo here we are: one last time in the group stages at Eden Gardens, and for both of these sides - almost certainly - one last time at this World Cup. As title defences go, it was an all-timer of a disaster for England, comparable not just with other cricketing fizzle-fests, but perhaps all sport: think France at the FIFA World Cup in 2002, or Lleyton Hewitt's first-round exit at Wimbledon the year later. England went nearly a month between their only two World Cup wins, with six defeats - many of them pastings - littering their campaign, one so poor it could yet knock them out of the 2025 Champions Trophy.England's brand of cricket has been high-risk-high-reward for about eight years now, and having enjoyed so much white-ball success with ...
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Match Preview – Australia vs Bangladesh, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 43rd Match
10Nov By adminNo Comments
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Match Preview – Australia vs Bangladesh, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 43rd Match

Big picture: Australia look to fine-tune against Bangladesh ahead of semi-finalBefore Glenn Maxwell unleashed the most surreal batting imaginable, Australia appeared headed for a hefty defeat against Afghanistan and almost getting into must-win territory against Bangladesh. That nervy scenario was alleviated by Maxwell, who powered Australia into a semi-final against South Africa. But Australia won't be treating this as a dead rubber and will field their strongest available line-up for the clash in Pune.Even though Australia have won six consecutive matches, after such a rocky start, their form has been patchy at times. They've been relying on individual brilliance - none more so than Maxwell's tour de force - rather than a collective.Australia still face selection issues in a bid to find...
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Recent Match Report – Afghanistan vs Australia 39th Match 2023/24
7Nov By adminNo Comments
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Recent Match Report – Afghanistan vs Australia 39th Match 2023/24

Australia 293 for 7 (Maxwell 201*, Rashid 2-44) beat Afghanistan 291 for 5 (Ibrahim 129*, Rashid 35*, Hazlewood 2-39) by three wicketsAt one point, Australia were 91 for 7 chasing 292. Then Glenn Maxwell Glenn Maxwelled his way to a double-century and not only did they win the game, they also sealed their place in the World Cup semi-finals.After Ibrahim Zadran became Afghanistan's first-ever centurion in World Cups, Naveen-ul-Haq and Azmatullah Omarzai shredded Australia's top order as they threatened to script a famous win at the Wankhede. But Maxwell intervened with a sensational 201 not out, 179 of which were scored in an unbroken 202-run partnership with his captain Pat Cummins, to flip the script. The result confirmed Australia's place in the final four, along with hosts India and So...
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Match Preview – England vs Netherlands, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 40th Match
7Nov By adminNo Comments
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Match Preview – England vs Netherlands, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 40th Match

Big picture - Total Cricket meets Total Wipeout"Champions of Europe… you'll never sing that!"That's right, here's one in the eye for all those glory-seekers in the upper echelons of the World Cup table, queuing up for their invite to the big dance in Ahmedabad in two weeks' time. There's a punier title up for grabs in Pune on Wednesday - so puny, in fact, that it's not even an official title, unlike the one that an England amateur team claimed at European Cricket Championships in Malaga last month. And look who they beat by eight wickets in the final… none other than the defending champions, Netherlands! Call off this farce! Cricket's come home already!In all seriousness, England would be all too happy to walk away from this miserable campaign right now. Saturday's 33-run loss to Australi...
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Match Preview – Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 38th Match
5Nov By adminNo Comments
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Match Preview – Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 38th Match

Big Picture: Problems to address for both teamsWell, this might not be quite the must-win scenario either of these sides would have been envisioned being involved in towards the tail-end of this tournament, but the ICC's confirmation that the top seven finishers (and hosts Pakistan) will gain qualification for the 2025 Champions Trophy has given what would have been a largely inconsequential dead rubber some much needed purpose.Both sides' troubles are well documented. Since their opening game win against Afghanistan, Bangladesh have lost six on the trot. Only England have a worse record, and Bangladesh have lost to them too. For a side that had won 24 of 39 ODIs since the start of 2021 - a 61% win record - this has been the most underwhelming of tournaments, especially in conditions that...
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Recent Match Report – Australia vs England 36th Match 2023/24
4Nov By adminNo Comments
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Recent Match Report – Australia vs England 36th Match 2023/24

Australia 286 (Labuschagne 71, Green 47, Woakes 4-54) beat England 253 (Stokes 64, Malan 50, Zampa 3-21) by 33 runsIt's over. And that's not simply the worst World Cup defence in the history of international sport.Everything that, for eight heady years, had been taken for granted about England's white-ball batting has vanished without trace, as if some Hollywood baddy had pinched a sports almanack from the future and set the dials on the team's Delorean for the 2015 World Cup. We've re-entered an epoch of endless, desperate failure - the miracle of 2019 lost forever to some branch-line of the space-time continuum.England's sixth defeat - by 33 runs in Ahmedabad - in seven games was in turn Australia's fifth win in five, with which they have marched clear of a hard-chasing pack to tighten ...
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Recent Match Report – India vs Sri Lanka 33rd Match 2023/24
2Nov By adminNo Comments
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Recent Match Report – India vs Sri Lanka 33rd Match 2023/24

India 357 for 8 (Gill 92, Kohli 88, Shreyas 82, Madushanka 5-80) beat Sri Lanka 55 (Shami 5-18, Siraj 3-16) by 302 runsIndia's fast-bowling trio was so sensational with the new ball that the scores of Sri Lanka's top five read like a line of binary code: 0, 0, 1, 0, 1. When Shami also had Nos. 7 and 8 for ducks with the score on 29, Sri Lanka were in serious danger of folding for the lowest total in ODI cricket. They were eventually bundled out in 19.4 overs as India completed the fourth-biggest win in the format, and Shami's 5 for 18 made him India's highest wicket-taker in World Cups. It was the third time that India had dismissed Sri Lanka for less than 100 in ODIs in 2023, and their second 300-plus-run victory against them this year.The very first ball from Bumrah was a portent for th...
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Match Preview – India vs Sri Lanka, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 33rd Match
2Nov By adminNo Comments
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Match Preview – India vs Sri Lanka, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023/24, 33rd Match

Big picture: Two teams with contrasting fortunesIndia. Sri Lanka. The Wankhede. The last time these two teams played an ODI at this venue, the occasion was the 2011 World Cup final. Twelve years later, though, things are a little different.India have lived up to the billing of being the pre-tournament favourites. They have won all of their six matches so far despite missing Shubman Gill for their first two and Hardik Pandya for the last two. If they beat Sri Lanka on Thursday, they will become the first team to qualify for the semi-finals.Sri Lanka, who made it to this World Cup via the Qualifier route, are struggling to stay alive. They have just four points from six games and are coming off the back of a loss to Afghanistan. Another defeat will push them to the brink of elimination.Sri ...
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