 India
will play England in an important Super Eights game at Lord's after both
the teams have already lost one game each in the second stage. The team that
loses this match will, in all probabilities need to pack its bag and leave the
competition, while the winners will have another chance at redeeming themselves
and entering the semi-finals.
India's previous game loss to West Indies may have come due
to a brilliant inning from Dwayne Bravo, but it was very evident that
they had been surprised earlier by the barrage of short bowling from Fidel Edwards
and Jerome Taylor. By the time, the team recovered from the false start, it
was way too late for them to do any real damage and the total of more than 150
was all thanks to a brilliant inning by Yuvraj Singh.
England would have seen this and would come out all guns blazing;
wanting to pepper the Indians with the short stuff again. However, the surprise
element could go missing from this and hence Team India may come out more prepared
this time around. Yuvraj, as mentioned earlier looks to be in good touch, having
smashed bowlers all over the park in both the games he has batted so far, but
out of the rest, not too many can say the same. M.S.Dhoni has been woeful, while
Suresh Raina did not have a great outing in the West Indies game either.
Team India will need the openers to provide them a start that could set the
ball rolling.
Currently the Indian bowling looks like it is over-reliant
on spinners, with Zaheer Khan a trifle off-colour. There could be a change
or two in the bowling line-up, with the inclusion of R.P.Singh looking imminent.
England, on the other side, will not only have to have Luke Wright and Ravi
Bopara recapture the form that could send the opponents tearing their hair,
but also a middle order - Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood - that could
do the business for them. Basically, both need to click together, and post a
challenging total for a reasonably strong batting line-up like India.
The bowling will have James Anderson and Stuart Broad open the attack, and
it will be an interesting battle between Broad and Yuvi, especially given that
the latter had hit the same bowler in the previous World T20 for six sixes in
an over. Graeme Swann had had a good time in India in the ODIs, and will look
to continue in that same vein, while Adil Rashid will try desperately not be
easy fodder for cannon to batsmen traditionally superb players of spin bowling.
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