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The halfway stage of World Cup 2019

June 22, 2019 00:00:00


Clockwise: England have impressed, bails failed to fall, Australia brought the best out of fielders such as Isuru Udana, and rain has been a pain

FE Sports Desk

From bails which refuse to fall easily to rain threat that hovers over almost every match, and the teams that are most likely to reach the semis-halfway into the World Cup, here are a few talking points.

Washouts and losses

This World Cup has already seen four matches abandoned-that's two more than all previous World Cups put together-and quite a few truncated. It has been frustrating for teams like Bangladesh and West Indies and to some extent India. Bangladesh, having beaten South Africa, were fancying their chances against off-colour Sri Lanka. But that match was washed out and points shared.

West Indies had South Africa on the mat early but had to settle for a point due to rain. India saw their match against New Zealand washed out-a win would have taken India to the top of the table and increased their chances of finishing the league phase there. Finishing on top would have got them the fourth placed team as semi-final opponents. An advantage, no matter how minuscule.

Bail fails

It is now more than a week since David Warner became the fifth batsman at the World Cup to avoid dismissal despite ball hitting stumps, the issue being the bails' stubborn refusal to leave their grooves. David Ligertwood, a director of the company that produces the flashing bails, declared himself "stumped" and promised the company was "monitoring the situation" and "reviewing all aspects". "This is not something you expect at international level," sniffed Kohli.

Shakib an unlikely world-beater

Coming into the tournament Bangladesh's Shakib al Hasan had scored two centuries in his previous 101 ODIs over nearly nine years. Now he has two on the spin, has not failed to score a half-century in his four innings, is the tournament's top scorer and has been named player of the match on both occasions his side has won. "I have been working on batting for the last one and a half months, and it has paid off," he says. By way of bonus, Shakib has also bowled 38 overs and taken five wickets.

Still waiting for a thriller

There can be little quibbling with the level of entertainment so far, but the tournament has yet to deliver a genuinely classic match. A couple - Australia against West Indies in particular - have flirted with greatness before falling short. As it stands no team has won a match in the final over or really had a real opportunity to - England against Pakistan were the closest to doing so, and they needed an unlikely 25 off the final set, eventually scoring 10. Meanwhile, every team to have won a game batting second has done so with more than two overs to spare.

South Africa's underperformance

South Africa are all but eliminated after Wednesday's defeat by New Zealand. In a tournament that has largely proceeded according to form, rankings and expectations, South Africa are the one team who have significantly diverged from predictions. While the three pre-tournament favourites - England, India and Australia - are well-placed to reach the semi-finals, the fourth team on that list, South Africa, have wildly underwhelmed. Being drawn to face England and India in their first three fixtures was unfortunate - though both matches were lost emphatically - but being outplayed by Bangladesh in their second game, in which their fielding efforts were particularly feeble, was disastrous. They get a win against Afghanistan.

Australia bring out the flash in fielders

Australia seem to bring the best out of opposition fielders. Nobody else has had more than two run-outs, yet somehow the Australians have twice had two in a single innings: Isuru Udana's single-over double run-out for Sri Lanka, brilliantly dismissing Alex Carey and Pat Cummins in the space of three balls with Glenn Maxwell nearly following seconds later, might not in the end have helped his team to win the game, but it made for thrilling cricket. By general consensus West Indies' Sheldon Cottrell holds the catch-of-the-tournament trophy so far, narrowly ahead of Ben Stokes, for his ball-juggling effort to dismiss Steve Smith at Trent Bridge.

Soumya's off stump against England

With all due respect to Eoin Morgan's glorious, record-breaking innings against Afghanistan, the most memorable six of the tournament occurred in Cardiff. Soumya Sarkar is, on his day, a beguilingly elegant practitioner of modern one-day batting brutality.


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