Missed last night's game due to work but when I saw the score, it F***ing shocked me.
To bowl them out within 20 overs and still fail to chase down the total just isn't good enough. But at the same time, our batting line up wouldn't look like this if we had a fully fit squad and these games weren't just warm ups for the World Cup - which is essentially how they're being treated.
The only batsman who has probably played his way into selection is Brook. And due to Roy's lack of form and Bairstow's injury forcing them both to miss the World Cup squad there will be a place at the top of the order for Salt or Hales to partner Buttler come our opening World Cup game against Afghanistan. But Buttler, Stokes and Livingstone will all come back into the team for the likes of Duckett, Salt/Hales and maybe one of the bowlers
Bowling wise, we have a few more options because they've done ok on this tour. Mark Wood is especially bowling fast again, it's just whether he can stay fit and healthy long enough to make much of an impact in Australia. Curran may be more likely to miss out due to their lack of pace, which will be lovely to play against on Aussie pitches. And Woakes very rarely succeeds away from home when the ball isn't swinging around in the English conditions. Willey again may find himself out the team, just due to the pitches not suiting his bowling. We've also Chris Jordan to come back into the team, who'll almost certainly play if available.
So I reckon we'll probably be looking at something like this come October 22nd;
Buttler (wk/c)
Hales
Malan
Stokes
Brook
Livingstone
Ali
Jordan
Rashid
Wood
Topley
With maybe some rotation in the bowling department for the second game which is against the runner up of qualifying group B (Scotland, Ireland, West Indies or Zimbabwe). Then the Aussies and New Zealand to follow before the winners of qualifying group A (probably Sri Lanka though it could be Holland, Namibia or UAE)
With only the top two going through, we're almost certainly gonna have to beat either Australia or New Zealand to progress. I would expect us to beat the others. Worst case would be West Indies and Sri Lanka but neither of them are as good as they were a few years back when they had their real golden generations of white-ball cricket. If it's Scotland or Ireland instead of the Windies then I'm sure they'll up their game for England, which could be make it more difficult than if it was Pooran's side. As for the Afghans, they're a side on the up but still lacking slightly as a batting force in my opinion. Rashid Khan is a match winner with the ball though.
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