I have to say I'm really enjoying the tournament so far, there's been some wonderful cricket on display and the crowds are adding fantastic colour and atmosphere too, from what I've seen I fancy an England v Windies final, I'll probably be wrong, but, it would make for a great spectacle.
Yes, I think it's more of a preference rather than a prediction, we can't write off Australia, NZ or India
West Indies should have beaten Australia. Don't think the Aussies have enough. 3 form batsmen with an ordinary middle order: 2 good bowlers. Really enjoying seeing them toil today, long may it continue.
It'll all end in tears. I can see it getting like the Eurovision song contest unless we win both matches.
That puts us on the brink as Pakistan have Bangladesh & Afghanistan left and I expect them to win both. I doubt we'll win both our matches.
England are out. Morgan can say what he wants but we're out. I'm trying my damndest to tempt fate but I think we're out.
I'm wanting Bangladesh to get through. And to think the commentators were saying thus werk was going to be bowling cos it would all be over bar the shouting!
Controversial opinion but for me it was bringing Archer in that ruined England. They broke the golden rule: You just don't change a winning team. We got to where they were through a perfect combination of intelligent batting and bowling. The bowlers were all able to pair off effectively and control the opponent's scoring rate meaning when we batted second our batters were never under too much pressure even when they weren't in good nick. Archer takes a fair few wickets but he also bowls some terrible overs and, aside from the first couple of overs with Woakes, he doesn't have any real chemistry when bowling in tandem with our other bowlers. To play him we're leaving out one of Plunkett, Willey or Curran, all of whom have been effective in critical games with both bat and ball and more importantly have played key roles in us rising to number one in the world. I believe Archer is absolutely the future of this side, but not the present. We jumped the gun with him and now we're paying for it.
Not so sure about that but i would agree Archer should not have been picked for this tournament. Our success over the last 2-3 years has been based on our batting strenth, not the bowling. Roy being injured has had a major impact and too many others have underperformed (bairstow no consistency, Moeen's continued selection mystifying). We peaked too soon.
I agree batting strength has been critical but controlling opponent's scoring rates through tight bowling and effective tandems reduced the pressure on our batsmen whenever we've had to bat second. The loss of this plus the reduced effectiveness of the batting has combined to reduce us to average at best. It's criminal that Willey isn't there and Archer is. The Australia game was made for a left arm swing bowler.
Up until this world cup we have generally done well chasing big scores: we havn't even done well chasing average one's during this tournament. Willey blows hot and cold and we have pretty much lost the added bonus of his 'batting'. Confidence appears to be low all round but i'm still confident we will win our remaining 2 games: there are no outstanding teams in this tournament.
Yeah they should have had Willey in the team to bring something different to the squad. Instead they changed the winning formula to bring in a West Indian to play for our Irish captain.
I like your optimism and I hope you're right. I do rate India but agree that New Zealand are nothing special and Australia are little more than a test side with a couple of big hitters thrown in. If Roy comes back in and our batters get back to form then we're still a side most others would be scared to face.
World Cup team of the tournament: Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes, Joe Root & Jason Roy selected http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/48987405 Just leave this here