What is the point of Sri Lanka going gutless and boring after the ninth wicket? There’s no run rate advantage to not being bowled out, is there?
No there is none. There number 11 has a dislocated finger so they were trying to protect him but it made little sense to tap it around and not take the runs.
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But he’s the one in the squad (for better or worse) and his absence has created an imbalance in our batting lineup. We can’t have both Marsh and Khawaja in this team if we are going to win this thing. I expect them to make a call on him and Marsh in the next few days.
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There’s a YouTube video out there that someone has put together of Ponting’s direct hits and it goes for over an hour. Freak.
EDIT I was wrong, it only goes for 50 minutes.
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Yep. To be replaced in the side by Mitch Marsh (assuming Stoin doesn’t come up) I’d expect. Another bowling option and more power in the lower middle order.
We are atop of the ladder.
We’re still apparently $hit though.
We’ll hit another gear when Warner finds some touch. You can tell he’s just feeling his way back into form.
We’re not ■■■■ but we need to get better. We still have England to play plus we’ll be playing India or England in the semis.
Our late order batting has been very poor as has our 5th bowler.
Yep. Some outstanding performers are masking a lot of our weaknesses at the moment and we have to be better if a couple of those guys have an off day.
Top Run-Scorers
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Aaron Finch, Australia: 343
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David Warner, Australia: 281
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Joe Root, England: 279
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Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh: 260
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Steve Smith, Australia: 243
Top Wicket-Takers
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Mitchell Starc, Australia: 13
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Pat Cummins, Australia: 11
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Mohammad Amir, Pakistan: 10
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Jofra Archer, England: 9
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Lockie Ferguson, New Zealand: 8
The fact we’re thereabouts is nuts. We were a side show half a year ago.
As for England, India and the way the finals are set up…
We are not garbage but we aren’t playing great either. Can’t rely on our two openers every game to get us off to a good start. Sill don’t think our lineup is right. Need to get over the Bangers before we have a tricky patch to finish. 3 wins will guarantee finals whilst 2 may see us miss if results don’t go our way.
In all likelihood we’ll only need two I reckon. Hard to see either WI or SL winning all their remaining matches. SL still haven’t played England or India and the WI still yet to play India plus they play each other.
Wi v NZ in 4 days is a big clash. If NZ can win it you can almost pencil in the final 4. That leaves 19 matches to go in the tournament that aren’t going to mean a whole lot
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We’ll know more about where we stand when we play NZ and England, so far we’ve lost to India and beaten the sides we should expect to beat.
The promising thing is Cummins and Starc are top of the bowling tree and still haven’t hit their peaks yet.
Smith, Warner, Finch and Maxwell are a formidable quartet; few teams would have 4 better batsmen. We just need the other batsman to play a supporting role, and not make their jobs harder than it already is.
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We didn’t even lose to India by much, what 30-40 runs after they made 350? If Carey took that catch we could have kept them to around 320, instead Pandya clubs 45 odd from 20 odd.
Think the biggest issue is I think we probably only keep one of Khawaja/S Marsh. Does Mitch Marsh come back? Do we bring back Stoinis or do we keep S Marsh in case the top order fails?
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We need to kneecap either or both of Khawaja and S Marsh.
Marsh 3 off 9 or 10 in the last 5 overs or less is pathetic.
Pakistan have won the toss and will bowl first against India. Lots of cloud about and there may be some rain later on but they’re expecting to get a match in, even if it is a truncated one.
A billion people will be watching this one. Good luck to Pakistan, the tournament needs an upset.
Didn’t they beat England?
Rohit gets off the mark with a french cut for 4. It’s not how, it’s how many.
Amir looks in good touch