Not long to go now.

England just made an emphatic statement over WI. Buoyed by the return of Gayle and Bravo, and with boy wonder Hope still starring, WI posted an impressive 360. 

England however found the total far too small, and powered by Roy, Root and Morgan, chased it down like it was 40 runs too few.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/18913/report/1158066/west-indies-vs-england-1st-odi-england-tour-of-wi-2018-19

Discuss your team's hopes for selection and compare with the competition. 

One thing I am intrested in is team balances. Faf wants Ngidi, Steyn, Rabada with Tahir, but if one quick man is out, wants allrounders not Olivier or another quick to replace said fast bowler. So Phelukwayo may be at 7 for now, but shifted to 8 with injury for wither Pretorious, Morris, or Wesie. Mulder seems to have left his hopes for form for selection too late.

India are batting short, with Kuldeep, Chahal, bumrah and 1 of BK or Shami, but have Krunal and Jadeja as possible replacements should they wish to extend their batting order.

England of course have no tail at all. Willey, Archer, Plunkett, Rashid, who will bat 9-11 are all domestic all-rounders. Only if Stone, T Curran or Wood play do they have any tailenders in the selection contention, and they aren't total mugs with the bat.

Pak have Imad, Shad, Faheem batting 7 to 9, with Hafeez at the 6th bowling option. 

Australia seem to be building a team that bat's short with Cummins at 8 - but have Stoinis or Maxwell at 7.

NZ seem to be building to a team of 6 Neesh 7 CdG and 8 Santner - but not to 9 with Kugg's looking to be hard pressed to make the team due to the #metoo movement after his not guilty rape verdict 2 years ago.

WI are on the up. Dre Russ may be available later, don't think Pollard is, but with Hope, Gayle, Hetmeyer, Bravo and Holder, they have more batting firepower than they have had in years. They will hope either Lewis or Campbell fire as well.

SL have the two Pereras only for batting fire power really. Afg are relying on their spinners. Banga bat deep, bowl good spin, but just carrying too many weak links without enough flair. But there's enough there to cause an upset or 2 along the way for sure.

My seedings are

1 Eng
2 Ind
3 Pak

4 to 6 Aus, SA, NZ - I favour SA over Aus and NZ right now. But all 3 teams seem to have holes.

7 WI to be a dark horse. They are improving their batting. Hope is a boy wonder so far.

Afg, SL and Banga to bring up the rear.

Aus has the benefit of 10 more games vs Pak and Ind to sort themselves out. NZ and SA seem to be slipping. Pak are my brave seed, but I like their talent. If Aussie pummel them in the UAE, I will adjust accordingly.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/19059/scorecard/1168243/india-vs-australia-2nd-odi-aus-in-ind-2018-19

 I just want to highlight one point. It's a favourite of mine. 

India dropped their superstar legspinner in Chahal for Jadeja based on Jadeje'as skills as an allrounder (he averages over 30 with the bat in ODI).

Jadeja bats 8. India were 6/171 - they get to 7/238. Jadeja only scores 21 runs off 40 balls. But it was a comfortable partnership. The tail then doesn't wag. All out for 250.

Australia do not play batting at 8 - yes NCN and Patty have scored useful scores here and there, but neither are all rounders. Aus was 6/218. The tail didn't wag. All out 242.

There was a huge difference here, and while everyone can rightly point to Bumrah and Kohli as being influencers in these two scenarios, the Indian selectors need some praise. They've had to sacrifice a bowling ace for more batting, and they've done it, K Pandya and Jadeja are getting more limited overs games again.

Australia seem to stubbornly refuse to even consider the selection change. And lose. Not having followed the BBL - I don't even know if Australia has any bowling allrounders. They used to have Faulkner. He was a very good #8.

Woakes would be the best batting 8 around for England. Santner/Astle provide more batting than Sodhi which favours them in selection. Pak have a Shadhab/Fahreeem/Imad 7,8,9 combo.

SA are interesting, basically Faf has said if Ngidi, Rabada and Steyn play, he will take the long tail, but if anyone of them is now injured, he wants them to be replaced by an allrounder like Pretorious, Mulder, Morris or Phelukwayo and not a fast bowler like Nortje.

I want the return of James Faulkner.

I agree about faulkner

having him down the order also allows you to go hard for longer

Point #2 has clearly been the English philosophy. And Aus and India in 2018 learnt this the hard way with Kohli and Smith and Finch being rather public with their acknowledgement of this fact. England will just rebuild at 6 wickets down as happy you please and crawl their way to 300 after losing 6/180 in the first thirty overs.

India and South Africa should be the only two teams facing a surplus of riches re bowlers. Faf has made his statement loud and clear, he will only be happy as captain with a long tail of 4 pro bowlers if he has the best 4. If one of Ngidi, Steyn or Rabada is injured, he wants an AR replacement - not Olivier or Nortje, not another fast bowler. An allrounder!

India have dropped Chahal - who has been on fire, for Jadeja and Krunal - much lesser bowlers - but much better batsmen. Now Chahal and Kuldeep - their 2 aces - they only have room for 1. This gives them the batting depth they sorely missed in England because India has been top 3 heavy for a while.

I do not believe that  Aus are so stacked with great ODI bowlers when you're playing Zampa and Lyon, that there is no room for a spin batting allrounder like Agar or someone better or Faulkner instead of a third seamer when that option arises.

I don't think many Aussie selectors and fans realised just how important Watson and Faulkner were in Aus winning the last world cup. Yes Starc was the tournament superstar, but those ar's - they're critical to team balance in a game that is becomming more about spreadsheets and less about one dimensional cricket every day. The fielding matters. The batting of bowlers matters. Everyone is looking for an edge, and prepared to give up an ace to find one. Anderson and Broad were dropped a long time ago - they're still the best seamers England has to take wickets. They're simply not wanted.

Aus under Bobby Simpson were world ODI leaders. O'donnell power hitting, Phillips batsman keeping, Dean Jones - his running between wickets and outfielding, Fielding drills, Steve Waugh slower balls, Mark Waugh opening the batting and bowling off spin and medium pace, you were so far ahead of the game trying to chase down WI, and when you finally did, you stayed on top for 15+ years. Aus is behind the 8 ball big time in limited overs cricket now in my opinion. You used to lead, you're not even following right now...

It's like you're playing 1980's WI cricket. The game has advanced. Yes bowling a side out or a top order big hundred will win some games. But its the most games in a equal sample that counts. England aren't winning with talent. They're only supremely talented player in my opinion is Jos Buttler. We'd all take Kohli over Root. Sharma over Bairstow. England are winning on playing numbers and not talent! If they wanted talent, Anderson and Broad would play.

Simpson used to play numbers... Buchannon lived for the numbers... The Perth Scorchers when Langer was there had the best numbers guy in Aus...

thing about faulkner is he is about as good as our 3rd best pace option anyway while being essentially an extra batter so its a no brainer for him to play

Heh - but he's not in the test team... play your test bowlers. Starc, Summinz, Haze and Lyon/Zampa please :-)

If Eng and Ind are shoo-ins for the semi's, and Aus needs luck, SA, NZ and now the emergence of a Gayle Bravo inspired WI team - I think everyone bar the form and winning teams which we expect to be Ind and Eng will need some luck.
The round robin format with no quarters will be brutal. 6 wins in 9 games will guarantee a semi final spot. but 4th place is likely to have a pile up be counting down that 5th win and NRR or NR points, or both...

The last time a round robin was played in 91/92, Pak scraped ahead in 8 games, 4 wins and 1 NR... tournament favourites Australia and WI were left stranded on 4 wins each and not qualifying. Pak got lucky a rained out game that they were losing badly to form team Eng. They were bowled out for 74! Noone else in the race for 4th beat England. Noone had beaten NZ at all in the round robin.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/8039 ... up-1991-92

That tournament had 2 east beats in SL and Zim with India just flopping badly. But Pak totally fluked it, on the last day, they needed to beat then unbeaten NZ in NZ, and then have Aus beat the WI later that night where now after Pak's win could only WI could qualify instead of both. Aus only had pride to play for, WI had it all to play for. WI and Aus were totally outfluked by Pak.

Afg should be easy beats this time, and no-one is talking up SL or Banga's chances - but those 3 teams and the WI could throw up some upset wins quite easily and send SA or Pak off course. Because beating those 4 - means Aus, SA, NZ and Pak only need to 1 of the remaining 3 games to get to 5 wins, assuming losses to Eng and Ind. The fluke dramas get worse especially if a team or two gets rain off vs Eng and Ind... or a rain out to Afghanistan for points banked on...

I think it will be very easy for any of NZ, Aus, SA, Pak to miss out or get in on a fluke. WI would be widely seen as a bigger fluke - but with their form against England and India (which was better than NZ's to be honest) - it's seriously on the cards too.

I like the round robin system more, because it's a better tournament with constant high quality match ups. But there's going to be a train-smash heading into 4th in most likelihood. It could even happen for 3rd spot too.

If Eng and Ind do not perform at the Cup in a dominant fashion as expected, the whole thing will be a log pile. 4th is most likely going to be flukey. 3rd could be too. There will be rain. And Eng or Ind will drop a game somewhere you would think - even if they dominate the tournament. And there will be an upset wins by minnows too. NZ, Aus, even SA and Pak, and now WI, should play every game as a must win... It's going to be a fluky shoot out...