2017 ICC Champions Trophy: Unchanged England Bowl To Decide Australia’s Journey
Nov 2, 2023 at 3:43 PM
Keeping the weather in mind and the ability of his batting side to chase down any total, England skipper Eoin Morgan won the toss and had no hesitation in bowling first. Skipper, as indicated earlier, decided to give a longer rope to Jason Roy and gave him another chance. In fact, a spot in the next round did not tempt him to make a change in the side.
Australia was forced to bat first, a decision which Steven Smith said he would have opted for after winning the toss. A team which is yet to test all its options made no change in the side in the ultimate quarter-final. A win here will assure them of a place in the next round whereas a loss will mean that Bangladesh will become only second team to qualify for the next round.
In case if rain pours down – the chances of which are quite high – and ends in a complete washout, Bangladesh will go through which will leave Australia cursing rain which has already washed out two of their games.
The track for the game is good for batting and Australia will have to stretch their innings to a big total as many big totals have been chased in the tournament earlier as well.
Playing XI –
Australia: David Warner, Aaron Finch, Steven Smith(c), Moises Henriques, Glenn Maxwell, Travis Head, Matthew Wade(w), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa.
England: Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan(c), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler(w), Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Liam Plunkett, Mark Wood, Jake Ball.
Captains talk –
Steven Smith:
“Would have liked to have batted. Looks a good surface and hopefully, we could post a good total first up.When everything is on the line it brings out the best in us. We are unchanged as well. It looks a bit dry and might take some spin later on. Zampa has been a big wicket-taker for us in recent times. England have been playing some good cricket at home and are a tough opponent so we need to go be on top of our game to beat them. The weather is not in our control. All we can control is coming out here and putting up a good show.”
Eoin Morgan:
“We are going to have a bowl first. The surface looks really good and there is a hint of rain around though we do not know how much it is going to affect. It has always been a good ground for runs with a small boundary. We think Jason is due some runs and hopefully he’d get it today. We have played with a lot of freedom, just because there is nothing riding on this game doesn’t mean we change around. Obviously they have more on the line than we do but would like to take the momentum over.”