 In a game that could potentially end up seeing one of the top teams getting knocked
out of the tournament as early as on the third day, England will play Pakistan
at Oval in London.
England had a shocking start to the tournament when they were dumped by the
wayside by underdogs Holland, and nothing short of a win will help their cause.
The batting, bar the openers Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright looked
anything but spectacular, where as the bowling was below par too. However, the
biggest pain in the backside for the English team was their fielding which was
a shade lower in quality to a club side. Run-outs were missed like the English
wanted to win an award for the 'best hosts', while the ground fielding otherwise
was rusty too.
England will need to sort their woefully mediocre-looking middle order out,
probably, by injecting some aggression and getting in even a half-fit Kevin
Pietersen for the encounter. On the other hand, the experiment with Adil
Rashid seemed to have no rationale attached and will need to dumped to get in
their number one spinner, Graeme Swann.
Pakistan has had a couple of convincing defeats during their warm-up games,
after coming into the tournament with a side that looked strong enough to compete.
The bowling suffered greatly in both the games, while the batting looked to
falling apart after a dazzling start against India. Ahmed Shehzad looked at
least twice his actual age, such was is maturity, but the rest of them barely
managed to get themselves noticed.
The bowling will be a bigger worry. Going into the tournament with no Shoaib Akhtar or Mohammad Asif, the Pakistanis were looking at Umar Gul
to lead the attack, with Yasser Arafat and new-comer Mohammad Aamer looking
to play the supporting role. None of the three have done anything to prove that
a lot can be expected out of them in the tournament, and the spinners in Saeed
Ajmal and Shahid Afridi have been the only saving grace. This is the trump card
that Pakistan will be looking to play; good, quality spinners against the English
batsmen, traditionally poor players of spin!
There is a reasonable possibility that the weather may have its say on Sunday.
In case the game is abandoned, both teams will receive a point each, which essentially
means that if Pakistan win their last game against Holland, England will be
out of the tournament. If, on the other hand, the unlikely possibility of the
Dutch continuing their giant killing habit continues, then it will boil down
to the net run-rate to decide whom between England and Pakistan do qualify!
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