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England captain Andrew Strauss won the toss and elected to bat against Ireland in their Group B match of the cricket World Cup here on Wednesday.
For England, pacer Stuart Broad is back from illness in place of Ajmal Shahzad.
In the Irish team, Gary Wilson is back in the side in place of Andre Botha.
Teams:
England: Andrew Strauss (capt), Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior (wk), Michael Yardy, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, James Anderson.
Ireland: William Porterfield (capt), Paul Stirling, Ed Joyce, Niall O’Brien (wk), Alex Cusack, Kevin O’Brien, Gary Wilson, John Mooney, Trent Johnston, George Dockrell, Boyd Rankin.
England captain Andrew Strauss won the toss and elected to bat against Ireland in a World Cup Group B match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Wednesday.
Fast bowler Stuart Broad returned from illness and replaced fellow seamer Ajmal Shahzad in the only change to the England side that dramatically tied its previous group game with co-hosts India on Sunday.
That meant swing specialist James Anderson kept his place despite conceding 91 runs against India -- the most by an England bowler in any World Cup match.
Ireland, who lost their opener to Bangladesh by 27 runs, brought in Australia-born all-rounder Alex Cusack for Andrew White and batsman Gary Wilson came in for seamer Andre Botha, who injured his groin during the warm-up.
Ireland's Ed Joyce was playing against England for the first time since reverting to the land of his birth after his international career with England ended following the 2007 World Cup.
This was Ireland's first all-professional team, with seven players -- captain William Porterfield, Boyd Rankin, Paul Stirling, Joyce, Niall O'Brien, George Dockrell and Wilson -- all signed by English counties, while the other four were on Irish contracts.
England: Andrew Strauss (capt), Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior (wkt), Michael Yardy, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, James Anderson
Ireland: William Porterfield (capt), Paul Stirling, Ed Joyce, Niall O'Brien (wkt), Alex Cusack, Kevin O'Brien, Gary Wilson, John Mooney, Trent Johnston, George Dockrell, Boyd Rankin
Umpires: Aleem Dar (PAK) and Billy Bowden (NZL)
TV umpire: Marais Erasmus (RSA)
Match referee: Roshan Mahanama (SRI)
Match start: 0900GMT
Pitch conditions: This pitch is one across from the strip where India and England scored a mammoth 676 runs betwween them on Sunday. This surface had more grass on it, offering seamers on both sides hope of movement where there was none at the weekend, but still looked a good batting pitch.
The ICC World Cup 2011 match for today, the seventh one, featuring Australia vs New Zealand (NZ vs AUS), is happening at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium at Nagpur.
Australia won the toss against New Zealand and chose to field.
New Zealand’s success ratio against Australia in World Cups is not something the Black Caps can boast of, but Daniel Vettori sees an opportunity to get the better of the Aussies in a Trans-Tasman contest, here, at the Vidarbha Stadium on Friday.
There’s not a great deal of pace in the Jamtha wicket and with spin looming as the hot-button issue of this World Cup, the New Zealand skipper is hoping to get their opponents in a tangle of inspired line and length bowling. “We will try to bowl straight at the wickets. The key is to be consistent against the big teams and the big players who have the talent to improvise,” the New Zealand skipper said ahead of Friday’s contest.
Australia struggled against spinners in a warm-up game that they lost to India on a wearing Bangalore pitch and was stymied by Zimbabwe slow bowlers at Ahmedabad on Monday.
So don’t be surprised if Nathan McCullum bounds in to open the New Zealand bowling or Vettori himself takes the new ball like Ray Price of Zimbabwe or Johan Botha of South Africa.
After Monday, Ricky Ponting will be acutely aware that better execution to spinners is required if this is to be a Cup of triumph.
Ponting admitted they failed to respond collectively against Zimbabwe’s spinners. He said the same after their drubbing against India in the practice match. Australia, therefore, have to do a lot better as a batting unit rather than resorting to their skipper’s candid admissions, “If you say we should have played better against the spinners, I will agree. But at the same time, we do know the right way to handle spinners…”
Australia’s bowling attack will be predominantly based on pace with three fast bowlers, a spinner (Jason Krejza) and some part-time contribution from Michael Clarke, David Hussey, and all-rounders Steven Smith and Shane Watson.
While Watson’s will be more about medium-pace, the kind of stuff suited to the sluggish Jamtha strip, Clarke, Hussey and Smith will make up for the absence of the second specialist spinner in the side.
Clarke, of course, will play a pivotal role in anchoring Australia’s hopes as he is also the best player of spin in the side. It was the vice-captain’s late heroics (58 not out from 55 balls) that propelled the Aussies to a defendable total against Zimbabwe.
Unlike New Zealand, the Aussies are in better mental shape. The devastating Christchurch earthquake has dented the Black Caps’ morale. The team’s physiotherapist (Dayle Shackel) and trainer (Bryan Stronach) had to rush home to attend to their loved ones. Even some of the players have been laid low by the incident. “It has been an incredibly tough build up considering what’s been going on… ,” Vettori said on Thursday.
New Zealand thrashed Kenya by 10 wickets in their first game. Barring openers, Brendon McCullum and Martin Guptill, none of the other batsmen got a chance to play. That doesn’t leave much scope for a change in the line up and Hamish Bennett will keep his place as Kylie Mills isn’t feeling hundred percent yet.
Unless the dew plays havoc on Friday morning, the Jamtha wicket will assist batsmen. Both sides have some big hitters, but it will ultimately boil down to application on match day. For Australia, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait or Doug Bollinger can bowl quick as Hamish Bennett and Tim Southee can turn the screws on the Aussie batting with their pace.
Australia survived resistance against Zimbabwe unlike the Black Caps’ cakewalk against Kenya. Both teams have the momentum, but the one who remains sensible in a crunch game will have a better chance Friday.
Teams
Australia (likely): Shane Watson, Brad Haddin, Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Clarke, Cameron White, David Hussey, Steven Smith, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait/ Doug Bollinger, Jason Krejza, Brett Lee.
New Zealand (likely): Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum, Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, James Franklin, Scott Styris, Daniel Vettori (capt), Nathan McCullum, Jacob Oram, Tim Southee, Hamish Bennett.
Australia versus New Zealand cricket matches are always special. The same way as India Pakistan matches are. The interest is always very high in the two teams fighting it out in the cricket ground. New Zealand always comes up with the best performance against Australia.
New Zealanders claim that Aussies behave like big brothers or worse treat them as belonging to one of its states. So to prove it that they are as competitive in the game of cricket New Zealanders always reserve their best performances against Kangaroos.
So when the two teams meet here in Nagpur tomorrow, brace yourself for great action. It is going to be fiercer than all the matches played so far including the one between South Africa and West Indies, played in new Delhi yesterday.
The match was won by South Africa with relatively ease, though at one point of time it looked as if the match will be interesting till the last over. But because the West Indian bowlers failed to come up with good performance, they failed miserably against a better side.
But there are some big question marks and dots and we have to answer those question and fill the dots.
New Zealand came up with a great show against Kenyan side in their first and only World Cup match played so far. They bundled out Kenya for just 79 runs.
Can New Zealand bowlers come up with the same show against Australians. Kangaroos are not in their best form and have been beaten by South Africa and India in their warm up matches. But the same team played superb game and came up with easy win against Zimbabwe.
Most of their batsmen are in good form and their bowling has been strengthened by return of Brett Lee. Captain Ricky Ponting too has once against hit his form and so has his deputy Michael Clarke.
New Zealand team on the other hand has been beaten by Pakistan, Bangladesh and India in one after the other series. Their batting is unreliable at best and bowling not very effective.
Southee and Bennett have the potential to do great damage to the opponents, but only when they try. Can they hit form again their arch rivals, is a question that will be answered in the next couple of hours.
Meanwhile Watson is the key to any Aussies success. Will he be able to bat and play a long inning or will lose his wicket like he did in the last match.
Ponting another regular performer too is in news for all the wrong reasons. He hit and broke a TV after being bowled out at 28 in Nagpur. He has said sorry for his bad behavior while claiming that he didn’t break the television set.
So brace yourself for a great an entertaining match tomorrow in Nagpur. It is going to be paisa wasool.
Once more the England team has come to the selfless aid of world cricket. After days of predictably boring mismatches, the English turned up in Nagpur determined to light a fire cracker under this tournament's soporific torpor.
In a display of clearly altruistic ineptitude, they produced a spectacle of diabolical out cricket that nearly gifted the match to the unfancied Dutch. Perhaps Ravi Bopara and walking wicket Paul Collingwood could have taken it to the last ball, but I predicted a win in the penultimate over and shall now collect my leather jacket from the virtual bookmaker of my imaginings.
Why it was thought a good idea to start day 2 of the World Cup with such heady delights as New Zealand v. Kenya is anyone's guess; followed up shortly thereafter (as it turned out) by Sri Lanka v. Canada.
I'd have made the top sides play each other from the outset while the minnows did likewise thus putting the favourites under more pressure later in the group stages when the slightest slip against a Canada or Ireland would mean elimination there and then. But what do I know? I just watch the game for fun. Maybe some Canadian construction magnate was on a tight schedule and millions of tons of Ambuja Cement doesn't just buy itself, you know.
At last, however, we have reached that point in the group stages when the organizers felt we were ready for a clash of the big boys, so following yesterday's first sightings of South Africa and West Indies, we get a potentially tasty clash of the Antipodean giants (though perhaps that's somewhat over egging the Australians).
Both teams had good wins in their first matches with New Zealand's crushing of Kenya being the performance of the tournament so far. Australia got bogged down by Zimbabwe's spinners, but there's no disgrace in that. Ray Price has been weaving his nagging web of prosaic magic for around 60 years now, and in Cremer and Utseya they possess genuine variety, as well as the worst rat tail hair extension (Cremer) in world cricket bar possibly Ishant Sharma's.
Australia v. New Zealand often produces close matches. For the best part of thirty years, the Aussies refused even to play the Kiwis, thinking them too inferior. But the Black Caps have proved to be no pushovers and are especially effective on slow low wickets that are the norm now on their home grounds.
Don't be fooled by that 4-0 reverse in Bangladesh last year. This New Zealand is a very different side with all the big names back as today's guest commentator on Test Match Sofa, Iain O'Brien, the former Kiwi medium-pacer, will no doubt remind me ad nauseam.
In Taylor, McCullum, Ryder, Oram and Vettori they have five potential match winners. Their seam bowling doesn't look up to much but I would expect Vettori to have three spinners on hand to suffocate the Aussies. By contrast, Australia continue to pursue a predictable strategy of brute force through Lee, Tait and Johnson with Watson filling in.
Australia play New Zealand in the eighth game of the World Cup 2011 at the VCA in Nagpur on February 25, 2011. The match will begin at 9:30 am local, 04:00 GMT.
The two teams have played one game each and won their first game but this will be a much more important and a tough game than their first game. See live scores.
Australia played Zimbabwe in their first game and after a quiet start, went after the Zimbabwe bowling to get 200 in the last 30 overs. New Zealand’s win was even more impressive. Click to see ball-by-ball commentary.
They bowled Kenya out for 69 and then took only eight overs to get to the target and not only win the game but also improve their net run-rate.
Watch live streaming.
Australia will look to Shane Watson to deliver while Brendon McCullum will be New Zealand’s best bet. Watch out for the highlights videos here after the match is over.
