This match between England and New Zealand will decide for sure who goes through to the next stage of the tournament – the semi-finals. Last night’s game between Australia and Bangladesh was washed off because of the rain.
That was the second time such a thing happened to Australia, who now have only 2 points from 2 games, while New Zealand has only a point from the game they past played against Australia.
So if New Zealand were to win this match, they would go to the semi-finals and the match to be played later between Australia and England would be a real cracker – weather permitting.
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So far rain has played a real spoil sport in this tournament. This is unfortunate, but it can only be expected. It always rains during this part of the year in England, which makes the ICC’s decision to reward it with the Champions Trophy for the second time in succession surprising.
For England, Chris Woakes has suffered a side-strain and has been ruled out of the tournament. So he is definitely out. They would be worried about how their bowling looking completely harmless against Bangladesh, a much inferior team.
Their batting has come good through, and they would want that to continue. Alex Hales, Joe Root and Eoin Morgan have been in fine form. Speaking about the England batting, Mike Hesson, New Zealand’s coach said, “Their batting line-up is very long and if you get it wrong and don’t get wickets, then you can chase a very high score. We know we’ll have play well, as well as we did against Australia if not a little bit better.”
New Zealand will have been frustrated at failing to win their match against Australia because of the rain. Kane Williamson, their captain, is not someone who wears his emotions on his sleeves, but even he was feeling dejected about being deprived of a famous win in an important tournament against their big rivals. They will now desperately want to win this game for sure.
The Teams
England: 1 Jason Roy, 2 Alex Hales, 3 Joe Root, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Liam Plunkett, 9 David Willey/Jake Ball, 10 Steven Finn, 11 Mark Wood
New Zealand: 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Luke Ronchi (wk), 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Neil Broom, 6 James Neesham 7 Corey Anderson, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Adam Milne, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Trent Boult
Match conditions
It rained heavily in Cardiff last night, one expects things to be a little better today, fingers crossed. Another match abandoned by rain will turn this tournament into a farce. As for the pitch, let’s hear from the England captain himself. Eoin Morgan said at the press conference, “What looked like a reasonably good pitch yesterday, with an extra 24 hours under the hot, sweaty cover might change things in the morning. But we’ll just have to wait and see how it turns up.”
Watch England play New Zealand at 3 pm today live on Star Sports!
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