ICC World Cup 2015 - Warm-up matches

[Aidan11]

Bit one-sided there.

[Arthur Crabtree]

India don't turn up for friendly's. When their batters turn up, everyone else had better watch out.

[shankycricket]

India don't turn up for friendly's. When their batters turn up, everyone else had better watch out.

IPL is more than 2 months away.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Touche.

A couple of early wickets for Zimbabwe v NZ. Then Guppy goes crazy.

As usual, whoever opens with Dilshan perishes in the first reel. But SL recover against SA.

[rich1uk]

cant understand why England are resting broad , he has looked the most under-cooked of all our bowlers having just come back from a long layoff , but we rest him rather than let him get another game under his belt

[rich1uk]

altho after woakes first over it might not matter much

bravo and gayle both gone for golden ducks

[shankycricket]

Nice to see the IPL slogger justify his selection again..

[bigfluffylemon]

Given the match is not List A and the West Indies will be giving all 15 of their squad a run out (admittedly most of the batting line up for one ball, apparently), quite why England won't give Hales a bat is beyond me.

I understand Ballance is injured?

Still, I can't see England lining up on Saturday in Melbourne with anything other than the XI that got thumped against Australia in the tri series final. Isn't that a sign of madness - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

I guess Tredwell might come in, but I'm not sure for whom - Anderson is undroppable, Broad probably is too (rightly or wrongly), Finn has been the second best bowler after Anderson, and Woakes (apparently) can bat meaning that the batting depth would be reduced (not that it'll make much difference if our middle order continues to be crap).

[rich1uk]

ballance was injured but afaik he is fit now but taylor got the nod ahead of him

only person you could really drop to get tredwell in is broad on current form imo but as you say he is close to a guaranteed pick if he is fit , thing is I don't think tredwell really makes that much of a difference , our problem is the final ten overs. over the last 2 years we have the worst economy rate in the last 10 overs of all the full members and the second worst run rate whilst batting

I seem to remember after the last world cup the two main problems that were identified was death bowling and having power hitters for the end of the innings

[rich1uk]

WI all out for 122

woakes gets a 5fer

not gonna be much of a warmup for the batsmen, one way or the other

[mikesiva]

Nice to see the IPL slogger justify his selection again..

You really are obsessed with Gayle, aren't you?

Newsflash...the batting lineup has a string of failures in the side:

Dwayne Smith 21

Lil Bravo 0

Marlon Samuels 10

Denesh Ramdin 6

Jonathan Carter 7

Darren Sammy 12

Andre Russell 7

Jason Holder 1

All of these guys are supposed to be good at batting....

Who will they blame when Gayle retires from ODi cricket after the World Cup?

Simmons hits 45, which is good enough to earn him a place in the starting Xi for the first match.

[Gingerfinch]

Wow, comprehensive from England. Nice to see Woakes get some wickets, as I really don't want to see him dropped, or be under pressure for a place.

[rich1uk]

it is but not sure we can read too much into this , I agree about woakes tho, he is still improving, he is going to have the odd game like the last one against Australia

[Gingerfinch]

A fifer even in a warm up will keep the vultures at bay

Agree about Broad. He needs game time, unless he has a niggle, of course.

[rich1uk]

thought they might have sent bopara in at #3 , a required run rate of 1.34 per over is right up his street