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England will need to overcome their own patchy form and New Zealand‘s favourites tag when the two teams meet in the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Wellington on Friday. You can follow live scores and a blog of this match from 12:00 noon AEDT.
It’s been a struggle for England in recent times but the jury is still out on whether the replacement of Alastair Cook by Eoin Morgan was a good move.
What they do have is a chance to prove that decision right when they take on one of the frontrunners for the title this year in New Zealand.
England are coming into the game without much of confidence, having gone down rather tamely to Australia in their opener.
Between bowling fuller at the Australian batsmen and bowling length, their strategy was to pull the ball short at them, and in doing so they erred in sending too many of them down their own half.
The result was a confident Aussie side plundering 342 in their 50 overs and with a bowling attack as potent as their hosts, they were never going to get any close to the target.
What followed was even worse. England were bowled out for 231, and were never in the game after having lost early wickets in the pressure of that big chase.
Morgan was dismissed for another duck, his fourth in five matches and that has put even more pressure on the captain – neither are the results going his way, nor his own form.
And New Zealand are not going to make it any easier for their opposition.
With two wins from two games, New Zealand are at the forefront of finishing in the top two in the points table in their group and a win here will all but ensure that.
They are the form side too. Despite losing seven wickets in their chase against Scotland, the coach Mike Hesson was quick to remind everyone that it was far better for them to win the game in 24.5 overs for the loss of seven instead of going wicketless but using up 30 overs to get to the target.
If anything, one can say that New Zealand weren’t clinical in their approach in that Scotland game and that’s a chink England will hope comes back to bite their hosts.
What will be interesting to see is if England continue with their tactic of bowling short at their opposition in this game as well or if they chance things around.
McCullum has said in his pre-match press conference he isn’t sure of whether to bat or bowl first but the side has shown enough confidence in naming their starting XI before the game. They are going in with the same side that beat Scotland last game, which only makes sense because they were easy winners in the end.
England, on the other hand, are yet to decide on their XI. Some questions still remain unanswered for this game and it could be time for them to tweak things around.
Should they give Ravi Bopara another chance after dropping him from the previous game or should Gary Ballance be continued?
Can James Tredwell be fit into the starting line-up or will it be too much of a risk on an easy-paced pitch? After all Majid Haq did tease and torment the Kiwis a tad in their previous game, didn’t he?
It does look like for England to win, they will need to do things slightly differently, but it remains to be seen whether that’s in terms of personnel change or a tactical one.
You can follow the live score of this New Zealand vs England World Cup 2015 encounter from 12:00 noon AEDT on Friday and post your comments in the section below.
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