The Indian cricket team is all set to lock horns with England at the ICC World Cup 2023 match today at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow at 2 pm.
The Rohit Sharma-led Indian side will enter this match having not played the previous week. They will face the defending champions, led by Jos Buttler, who are struggling to make it to the tournament’s semi-finals.
But no one had imagined that England would be hanging by the thinnest of threads by the time this game would arrive.
With just one win from five games, England are lurking near the bottom of the points table. If they are to make it to the knockouts from here, every atom in this universe needs to work for them – there are that many permutations they need to go in their favour.
England seem to have already done what was in their control. They have tried all 15 players in the original squad, tried to play with no care in the world, and even left out their vice-captain for three out of five games. Nothing has worked.
India is currently in second place and undefeated, ahead of South Africa in first place, New Zealand in third, and Australia in fourth. Meanwhile, with just one victory in four games, England is ranked ninth out of ten teams in the tournament.
India, on the other hand, have looked like the most complete team. With five wins in as many matches, they are the only unbeaten team in the tournament. They even defeated New Zealand, their bogey team at the ICC events, despite missing their most irreplaceable, two-in-one player Hardik Pandya.
The key to India’s success is how they start. Rohit Sharma has been setting the tone in the powerplay, striking at 134.01, while Jasprit Bumrah has been doing it with the ball, with an eye-popping economy of 2.90 in the first ten overs.
If India win on Sunday, they will regain the top spot and push England further to the brink of elimination. But they are still without Hardik, who is recovering from his ankle injury. And that means going in with just five frontline bowlers once again. Perhaps that’s why Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav were rolling their arms over in the nets.
Now, India will be targeting their first win in the World Cup win against England since 2003 and hopefully end a 20-year wait. The form and momentum are surely with India but England will be tricky customers for the hosts in Lucknow and will be believing one of their players will step up on the day in front of a packed crowd at the Ekana stadium.
Likely Playing XIs: India:
Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj.
Playing XIs England:
Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (c & wk), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, David Willey, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood.
Where to watch?
India’s match against England can be seen on television in India on the Star Sports Network, and for the people watching on smart TVs, laptops, and smartphones, the ODI World Cup 2023 will be streamed on the Disney+ Hotstar app. For smartphone users, watching the ICC World Cup tournament is free on the Disney+ Hotstar app.
