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Gameday in Ahmedabad
Good evening all! A week after a thrilling victory over New Zealand, featuring a Glenn Maxwell golf cart accident and a dash home for personal reasons by Mitchell Marsh, Australia are back on deck in Ahmedabad with the chance to put a formal end to England’s minuscule chances of defending their 2019 World Cup crown while also shoring up their own spot in the semi-finals.
England duo Jos Buttler (left) and Joe Root during their Cricket World Cup clash with Sri Lanka.Credit: Getty Images
Australia, you might remember, were thrashed by a team then led by Eoin Morgan at Edgbaston in the semi-finals four years ago, part of a phase in which England clearly intimidated the Australians in white ball cricket. A very similar team went on to win the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia last year, only this time led by Jos Buttler and coached by Matthew Mott.
Mott has been in the sights of many this week amid the repercussions of an England campaign that has seen them win one game out of six so far. But Joe Root regained some rhetorical ground (if that’s a thing) by declaring he still felt England were the better team, “man for man” than Australia.
Our correspondent in India, Malcolm Conn, took a close look at Australia’s training for this fixture.
Might Australia be more resilient than England? Atherton thinks so
One perspective on England and Australia that’s worth noting, is that of the former England captain Michael Atherton in The Times – he asked a fair question about how it is that Australia, though starting this tournament slowly, have often been more resilient than England.
“This inability to stem the tide when things begin to go wrong seems to differentiate England and Australia,” he wrote. “For some reason, England seem to implode more spectacularly. Results of Ashes tours, for example, reflect that: lately, Australia have struggled to win in England but they have always been competitive, whereas England have collapsed to defeats by astonishing margins in Australia: whitewashes in 2006-7 and 2013-14; 4-0 in 2017-18, and 4-0 in 2021-22.
“Answers on a postcard, please, why that happens. Are they more resilient? Do they hold their nerve better when things go wrong? Does the smaller, less febrile media following make it easier for players when things go badly? Do they simply produce better teams more consistently, making the troughs less severe?
“Australia’s campaign here in India has been a case in point: they began terribly, losing badly to India and South Africa and playing poorly in the process: their batsmen were out of form, they dropped numerous catches and there were questions around the strategic acumen of their captain, Pat Cummins. Like England, they looked done for in those early stages, yet, unlike England, they have managed to turn things around.”
Since becoming captain in Tests and then 50-over games, Cummins has pushed for the Australians to be stoic in the way they go about things, but also fearless in the limited overs formats. That attitude is epitomised by Travis Head, who came back from a broken hand with a tremendous century against New Zealand. He is one Australian who England have made no secret about fearing.
The David Warner question
Welcome to tonight’s Cricket World Cup live blog, I’m Daniel Brettig and I will be taking you through the action as Australia takes on England.
We will start with one of the key questions from Australia’s campaign and that is the future of David Warner.
One of the week’s other talking points was that of David Warner’s next few months. Malcolm Knox has written about the dilemma facing the national selectors, following Warner’s declaration he will retire from Tests at the end of the Pakistan series if selected.
Warner has been named in the squad for a series of Twenty20 matches in India following the end of the ODI World Cup – meaning he will not be available for any Sheffield Shield matches before the Pakistan series starts in Perth in mid-December.
Whatever happens, there can be no doubting Warner’s performances in the World Cup so far. In his own words, he has made his critics “look stupid” by maintaining tremendous consistency.
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