Group A - India, England, Australia, West Indies

[Pedro Delgado]

Clarke misses out.

 

[grecian]

Clarke misses out.

Deliberate mis-spelling for comic-effect, pedders?

 

[Pedro Delgado]

Heh heh, nah I'm just an idiot.

 

[Nishant]

this should be a good series; i dont understand why everyone is saying that it is worthless! Its just a tournement with all ur favourite teams taking part; who cares if its really important or not; after all i, as a cricket fan would rather see my team play more games rather than hope that they dont play so that nothing happens to the players!

 

[Great Birtannia]

The selectors have narrowed down the WC pace bowlers to five - Lee, McGrath, Bracken, Johnson and Clark with the final three jostling for position. I think with Johnson as back up and by the sounds of it only likely to play if our third pool game against India is a dead rubber I would not bother calling up another quick. The next in line would be Gillespie and Tait and I don't think we gain much by having either in India. I don't know if they make us pick a 'like for like' replacement for Clark, but if they do not, I would be calling up Hayden. Katich was terrible in Malaysia and I am having premonitions of Katich facing Harbahjan, 10-6-8-1. Hayden played a couple of sound knocks in the DLF cup and of course has an exceptional record in India and with that opening position up for grabs at the WC it would make sense to give him another shot at it as the Champions Trophy squad was finalised before the series in Malaysia.

 

[China_Star]

johnson's a noob, send in pros that won't be smashed for 6...
katich is way too slow, dead rubber = runs, katich won't be owning

 

[Poker Boy]

Much as I'd like to say England(and our ODI form did improve against Pakistan) India and Australia to qualify(although if Sri Lanka end up in this group I think they might shock Australia(they beat them twice in the VB series and will be at home in sub-continental conditions)).

 

[GIMH]

You know, I've been downplaying this competition, but it would be magnificent if we could beat the Aussies here. It would be somewhat similar to when we beat them in the Twenty20 last year. Or even, when beat them in the 2004 CT.

 

[Poker Boy]

Big problem for Engalnd is who is going to open the bowling -especially if Flintoff cab't bowl. All the rest have problems - Anderson is short of matches, Harmison struggles to control new white ball(might be better as first change as Donald used to do for SA), Mahmood has been hammered in the past, Lewis did well in autumn series against Pakistan but if it doesn't swing could be easy meat and Clarke's bowling gets hammeded even playing for Surrey! Stuart Broad should have been here - he's young but he's tall and gets bouce. Anderson and Flintoff could work in VB series and WC but would be a risk here. Would Fletcher DARE to emulate NZ in 1992 and open with a spinner? It would be a gamble - but what's the alternative?

 

[Nishant]

there are a lot of teams that need to prove thier worth in this series. India, England and New Zealand; by the way; when was the last time NZ played; they hardly play matches these days. Isn't this bad for their team?

 

[honestbharani]

Australia, India, RSA and Pakistan to the semis for me.

 

[Poker Boy]

Australia, India, RSA and Pakistan to the semis for me.

Three out of four I agree with - if SL end up in Pakistan group I think they'd take out SA - 5-0 whitewash in 2004 and more recently knocked them out of the VB series.

 

[Poker Boy]

I wish Shane Warne was playing in this tournament -Darryl Cullinan is one of the commentators and I'd love someone to ask him "Darryl - Warne is about to bowl -now if you were the batsman, how would you go about playing him"? I wonder what his answer would be?

 

[grecian]

Decent performance by England in the warm-up, key players getting a go, and coming through uninjured.

Rikki came in at number 11, and didn't bowl, is he being picked as a specialist fielder?

 

[superkingdave]

it was 13 a side (he came in at 10)

 

[grecian]

Oh, I did realise, just being flippant, don't really know why hes out there to be honest.

 

[Great Birtannia]

Hayden 92 off 124 balls v. Tasmania.

Watson (opening) 70 off 83 balls v. Maharashtra CA XI in the CT warm up game.

Over to you, Simon.

 

[marc71178]

I notice nobody has commented on the fact that Katich was told to play a specific role in the last Tournament, merely had a go at him.

 

[Great Birtannia]

If taking 40 balls to make 6 runs is what Katich was told to do then Buchanan really does lack common sense and a hell of a lot of it.

 

[adharcric]

He didn't play out any role for the Aussies. He just sucked.