Cricket World Cup 2019

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Congratulations Pakistan. A really disciplined, energetic performance by all accounts.

I absolutely love watching Pakistan play when they are on fire - the passion really shows through. And it was great to see so many of their fans at Trent Bridge too.

[Etienne]

Afghanistan win a good toss and put SL in. Bookies have SL as marginal favourites.

[Kevin S]

Odds have just updated on PP; they are both 9/10. I'm putting my 20p on N. Zadaran to be Afghanistan's top run scorer.

Let's hope it stays dry,

[Etienne]

Lanka off to a flyer.

[Kevin S]

Oh dear, this is some shoddy bowling from Afghanistan. Over 50 scored from the first five overs, including 17 extras given up.

[Kevin S]

And so there's a change already.

[Duncan Gardner]

Aye, the lads are off to a Kusal Flyer

This was my point above. The quality falls away a lot below the top 8 or 9, so giving the best of the rest 9 games is cruel and largely pointless

[Kevin S]

Much better from Afghanistan in the past five overs - over rate has dropped a bit and only two more extras given away.

[Kevin S]

DG, yes, and I think the new T20 World Cup format could be interesting. In case nobody clicked on the link, what they are going to do is to give the top eight teams a bye through to the second round.

Then the bottom eight teams in the tournament will play in two four-team round robins which you'd hope would have some competitive matches in them, Then the top two from each of those goes through to the second round (making 12 teams through) and they play in two six-team groups (i,e, five matches each rather than nine as here) followed by the semi finals and final.

Edit - see this is similar to the last time they did it but only one team went through from the first round groups and so the second round groups had five teams in them,

[Kevin S]

Bad error from Karunaratne, chipping it gently to long on. Run rate continues to fall as well, so perhaps the new batter Thirimanne can reinject some momentum to Sri Lanka's innings.

[Kevin S]

Ooh, what a damaging over this is from Nabi!

[Kevin S]

And he gets a third with the final ball! Bloody hell. Game on its head.

[Duncan Gardner]

Fuck's sake, it's a Kusal-o Kollapso

[Etienne]

NABI!

[Ray de Galles]

4 for 5 off 11!

[Kevin S]

And Hassan comes up with another one. Lanka on the rack.

2-144, 3-146, 4-146, 5-149

Those two overs:

. W 2 W . W / 2 1 . . . W /

[Kevin S]

TMS just announced that Steyn is out of the World Cup.

[Ray de Galles]

Do they get to call anyone else up?

[Etienne]

Yes, though Beuran Hendricks doesn't have quite the same aura.

[Ray de Galles]

Ha! My supplementary was going to be if they had anyone worthwhile but thought better of it.

[Etienne]

SL's run rate is still over 6, so as long as they don't panic and bat out their overs they should have a defensible target.

[Etienne]

Of course SA should have been able to choose between Kyle Abbott and Duanne Oliver, if they weren't both Kolpaking.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

RAIN

[Kevin S]

Of course SA should have been able to choose between Kyle Abbott and Duanne Oliver, if they weren't both Kolpaking.

Olivier wants to play for England once he qualifies.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/...duanne-olivier

[Kevin S]

Cricinfo:

3.30pm So, we have a 4pm start - half an hour from now - and not a significantly curtailed game. It's 41-overs per side [SL have batted for 33 so far]. Good news for Sri Lanka, they'll see no more of Mohammad Nabi