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Home   /   Cricket Weekly Column #2 World Cup: Round Two Roundup
Posted on by Riley Taylor

By Riley Taylor (@rileyttaylor21)

Welcome to the second edition of Overtime’s Cricket Weekly Column, where we look at the weeks biggest cricket stories and games.

The weather took a toll on half of this week’s fixtures in the Cricket World Cup as games between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, South Africa and West Indies, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and New Zealand versus India were all washed out.

However, there is still plenty to cover in a week which saw England return to form and a clash between old rivals India and Australia.

Saturday June 8 England v Bangladesh at Cardiff

England: 386/6 (Roy 153, Buttler 64, Mehidy 2-67, Saifuddin 2-78)

Bangladesh: 280 (Shakib 121, Mushfiqur 44, Stokes 3-23, Archer 3-29)

Full scorecard: https://www.cricketworldcup.com/match/8203

After a shock defeat to Pakistan, England looked to bounce back against an inform Bangladesh who had pushed New Zealand all the way in their last game.

Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow (51) made an excellent opening stand of 128 before Bairstow reached his half-century and then was out the next ball.

Joe Root and Roy added 77 runs for the second wicket before Root departed for 21, as a chopped a ball from Mohammad Saifuddin onto his stumps.

Roy (153) followed soon after but not before he brought up a stunning 150 after hitting three consecutive sixes off Mehidy Hasan.

Despite his failure in the last game, Jos Buttler (64) was promoted to number four and put on quick runs with Eoin Morgan (35).

Some good bowling from Bangladesh saw Buttler and Morgan depart before Ben Stokes came and went for just six.

However, some late hitting from Chris Woakes (18no) and Liam Plunkett (27no) powered England to a massive total.

Jofra Archer started England’s defence well when he bowled Soumya Sarkar for two in his second over.

Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal (19) put on the first 50 partnership for Bangladesh before Tamim was caught after being undone by the pace of Mark Wood.

Shakib and Mushfiqur Rahim put on a 100-run partnership to put pressure on England but when Mushfiqur was caught by Roy off Liam Plunkett, Bangladesh began to struggle.

Mohammed Mithun (0) fell next over to Rashid and when Shakib (121) was yorked by Stokes, Bangladesh fell apart.

The Tigers lost their last five wickets for 61 runs as England wrapped up a big win to get them back on track on their course for finishing in the top four.

MOTM: Jason Roy – A staggering innings which could have been a lot more if he did not try to hit Mehidy for 36 off an over.

Saturday June 8 Afghanistan v New Zealand at Taunton

Afghanistan: 171 (Shahidi 59, Zazai 34, Neesham 5-31, Ferguson 4-37)

New Zealand: 173/3 (Williamson 79no, Taylor 48, Alam 3-45, Nabi 0-18)

Full scorecard: https://www.cricketworldcup.com/match/8204

Afghanistan, a team without a win took on New Zealand, a team with a 100%-win record.

Afghanistan batted first and started off well with a 66-run partnership between openers Hazratullah Zazai (34) and Noor Ali Zadran (31).

However, Afghanistan then suffered an almighty collapse as James Neesham and Lockie Ferguson unravelled the batting order as they lost eight wickets for 81 runs with only Hashmatullah Shahidi (59) and Aftab Alam (14) making double figures.

Shahidi and Hamid Hassan (7no) put on the second highest partnership of the innings (25) to get Afghanistan to a meagre total of 172.

Afghanistan got off to the perfect start in reply as Alam dismissed Guptill with the first ball of the New Zealand innings.

Colin Munro (22) and Kane Williamson (79no) built a steady 41-run partnership before Alam got his second when he removed Munro.

Ross Taylor (48) and Williamson put on 119 runs to wipe out any chance Afghanistan had.

There was some consolation for the Afghans as Alam picked up his third wicket, bowling Taylor with a full toss.

Tom Latham and Williamson guided New Zealand home as they made it three wins from three.

MOTM: James Neesham – a brilliant spell of bowling which tore through the flimsy Afghanistan batting order,taking the first first five-wicket haul of this years World Cup in the process.

Sunday June 9 Australia v India at The Oval

India: 352/5 (Dhawan 117, Kohli 82, Stoinis 2-62, Cummins 1-55)

Australia: 316 (Smith 69, Warner 56, Kumar 3-50, Bumrah 3-61)

Full scorecard: https://www.cricketworldcup.com/match/8205

A clash between old rivals took place at The Oval as India took on Australia.

With a combined seven World Cup’s between them, it was to be an exciting encounter.

India started with three large partnerships for their opening three wickets. Rohit Sharma (57) and Shikhar Dhawan (117) putting on 127 for the opening stand.

Dhawan and Virat Kohli (82) put on 93 before Kohli added another 81 with Hardik Pandya (48).

The Australian bowling attack struggled to cope with the might of the Indians batting throughout the entire innings with their only solace coming when Marcus Stoinis removed Kohli and MS Dhoni (27) in the same over.

Australia were slow in reply as their opening three partnerships saw them fall well behind the required run rate which meant that the middle order was faced with too much to do.

Naturally,, this caused a collapse as Steve Smith (69) fell LBW to Kumar, before the Aussies then lost Stoinis (0) and Glenn Maxwell (28) in quick succession.

Alex Carey (53no) continued to fight as he and Nathan Coulter-Nile (4) put on 39.

But when Coulter-Nile was out, Australia lost their last four wickets for 33 runs to hand India their second victory.

MOTM: Shikhar Dhawan – A tough one to call as the whole Indian team played superbly but Dhawan’s knock setup a brilliant total for India.

Wednesday June 12 Australia v Pakistan at Taunton

Australia: 307 (Warner 107, Finch 82, Amir 5-30, Afridi 2-70)

Pakistan: 266 (Imam 53, Hafeez 46, Cummins 3-33, Starc 2-43)

Full scorecard: https://www.cricketworldcup.com/match/8208

Australia returned to Taunton as they faced a Pakistan side high on confidence after beating England.

Both sides will have been thankful to the weather gods after the three games in the previous three days had been washed out.

A superb opening 146-run partnership between Aaron Finch (82) and David Warner (107) got Australia off to a flier but they were helped by some poor fielding from Pakistan which saw both batsmen dropped.

However, aside the rest of the Australian order only managed 99 runs between them as they lost their last nine wickets for 161 runs.

Mohammed Amir the pick of the Pakistani bowlers as he returned figures of 5-30 from his 10 overs.

Despite their collapse, Australia started their defence perfectly when Fakhar Zaman was caught by Kane Richardson off Pat Cummins for 0.

Babar Azam (30) departed after looking settled as he put on a 54-run stand with Imam ul-Haq (53).

Imam reached his half-century, but it came off a slow strike rate of 70.66 and when he was caught behind off Cummins, Pakistan started to struggle.

They lost Mohammed Hafeez (46), Shoaib Malik (0) and Asif Ali (5), within the space of 13 runs to leave captain Sarfraz Ahmed to bat with the lower order.

However, the lower order frustrated the Aussie attack with Hasan Ali (32) adding a 40-run partnership with Sarfraz.

But when Hasan fell to a bouncer from Richardson it seemed Australia were cruising to victory.

However, some brilliant batting from Wahab Riaz (45) and Sarfraz got Pakistan back into the game with a 64-run partnership.

Australia looked to be struggling without their fifth main bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile who had pulled up earlier with an injury with Finch’s part-time bowling not doing enough to fill the role.

With Australia searching for a wicket, Finch gambled by bringing on Mitchell Starc an over earlier and this gamble paid off when he removed Wahab and Amir (0) in the same over.

With just one wicket left, Sarfraz had to retain strike at the end of every over. This added pressure led to his demise when a superb bit of fielding from Glenn Maxwell saw him pick up the ball on the bounce and in mid-air, hit the stumps with only one to aim at.

Australia will be glad to have bounced back after their defeat to India, but they will be very concerned about the way they quickly collapsed after Warner and Finch got out.

MOTM: David Warner – if Pakistan had won it would have gone to Amir but as they didn’t my vote goes to Warner as he returned to his old power hitting ways as he set up another victory for the holders.

Overtime’s Round 2 Best XI:

1. Jason Roy (ENG)

2. Shikhar Dhawan (IND)

3. David Warner (AUS)

4. Kane Williamson (NZ)

5. Shakib Al-Hasan (BAN)

6. Jos Buttler (ENG)

7. James Neesham (NZ)

8. Bhuvneshwar Kumar (IND)

9. Jofra Archer (ENG)

10. Lockie Ferguson (NZ)

11. Mohammad Amir (PAK)

12th man: Rain

Here is the table after another week of games: https://www.cricketworldcup.com/standings

For more cricket content click here: http://www.overtimeonline.co.uk/category/cricket/

For our summary of the first round of fixtures click here:
http://www.overtimeonline.co.uk/cricket-weekly-cricket-world-cup-round-1-roundup/

Stay tuned for our summary on next weeks games!

Sub-edited by Tony Robertson

Featured image credit:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/bad-weather-rain-raindrop-sad-85719/

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