Ashes rivals England and Australia will face each other in the world cup league stage match today at Lord's on Tuesday. With the likes of Aaron Finch, David Warner and Mitchell Starc battling out against Joe Root, Eoin Morgan and Jofra Archer, it would be a battle of equals in terms of team strength.
England has won the toss and sent Australia to bat. England will take the field with an unchanged team from the last game, while Aaron Finch-led Australia has brought in Jason Behrendorff and Nathan Lyon in place of Nathan Coulter-Nile and Adam Zampa.
For England, nursing its surprise defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka in the last match, Tuesday's game against arch-rivals Australia is a must-win match. In an unexpected turn of events, England lost to Sri Lanka by 20 runs in a low-scoring match. Faced with a relatively modest target of 233 on a tricky Headingley pitch, England slumped to 212 all out. This was their second defeat, the first one was to Pakistan early on in the pool stage.
Despite the two defeats, England maintained its spot among the top four in the points table. Though a strong contender for the sem-final spot, England's rest of the matches, including Tuesday's, are against the top teams of the tournament, viz, Australia, India and New Zealand. Hence, the rest of the journey for the hosts are not going to be easy. These are the teams that they have not defeated at a World Cup since 1992.
However, England captain Eoin Morgan has insisted his side's defeats by Pakistan and Sri Lanka, did not imply a loss of nerve heading into their concluding group fixtures with Australia, India and New Zealand. "Guys have performed under pressure for a long time, they have performed as favourites in series for the last two years," said Morgan.
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England will look to capitalise on its biggest strength—aggressive batting—going against Australia. After losing the match against Sri Lanka, England's Jos Buttler had noted that the problem was that they were not aggressive enough. "I think we were a little bit passive as a group," said the usually big-hitting Buttler, who made just 10 before becoming the last of four wickets for veteran paceman Lasith Malinga.
Doubts, however, persist about England's ability to bat in less than ideal conditions for shot-making. Their problems were summed up against Sri Lanka when Moeen Ali marked his 100th ODI by hitting a six, only to try to repeat the shot next ball and hole out to leave England 170-6. To add to their woes, England will miss star batsman Jason Roy who has been ruled out with a torn hamstring.
Australia, on the other hand, has emerged stronger as the tournament progressed. Barring their loss to India, Australia have put up a thorough team effort consistently, boosted by the return of David Warner and Steven Smith after the ball tampering incident. They have been buoyed by the productive opening partnership between captain Aaron Finch and David Warner and are second in the table after five wins from six matches.
Adding to their power is Mitchell Starc, who has emerged as the one of the two most successful bowlers this world cup. With 15 wickets, he has plundered the most number of wickets, along with fellow pacemen Jofra Archer (England) and Mohammad Amir (Pakistan). That said, the rest of Australia's bowling department has been far from consistent.
England: Jonny Bairstow, James Vince, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (capt), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wk), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood
Australia: Aaron Finch (capt), David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Jason Behrendorff
