England is playing for pride, while Australia is looking to cement their position in the semis. Ayaz Memon provides his expert analysis on the clash
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00:00 The match between traditional rivals England and Australia was supposed to be one of the
00:03 high points of the World Cup.
00:05 Much doubted.
00:06 Of course, drawing from the Ashes legacy.
00:10 But even in ODIs, they've had some great contests in the past or in the other format, T20.
00:15 But it's come unstuck.
00:16 And it's come unstuck very badly because England have played so, so, so poorly.
00:21 They're out of the running for a place in the semi-finals.
00:23 Australia are still in the running.
00:25 And therein lies the crux.
00:27 Can England clip Australia from making it to the semis?
00:31 Remember, Australia are on 8 points.
00:33 England, forget about the number of points they've got.
00:35 But Australia need to win.
00:37 And this is going to be a tough one for them to get past.
00:41 Because England, while wallowing in misery, still have the wherewithal in terms of talent
00:47 and player power to pull off one big win.
00:51 One big upset in the context of this tournament where they've been otherwise quite, quite
00:55 poor.
00:56 So Australia need to be on their guard.
00:58 And Australia have got their problems.
01:00 Because as we've learnt, Glenn Maxwell had a freak injury, fell off a golf cart and is
01:06 not going to be playing this match.
01:08 Or unlikely to play this match.
01:09 And Mitch Marsh had to suddenly fly back to Australia on personal reasons.
01:12 So that is two players, two infirm players who will not be there.
01:16 Mitch Marsh has been opening batsmen, has hit up to 100, has had some, you know, enjoyed
01:21 great partitions with David Bonner, of course.
01:23 Now Travis Head is there.
01:24 So that doesn't matter.
01:25 But number three, or number four, to make up for the shortage of runs from Labouche
01:28 and even from Steve Smith, Mitch Marsh was important.
01:31 And then Glenn Maxwell has hit the fastest century not just of this tournament but of
01:35 the World Cup.
01:36 And he's not there.
01:37 He's also bold well.
01:38 So Australia need to be on their guard.
01:39 You know, they need to not assume that because England has played so poorly so far, this
01:44 is going to be easy pickings.
01:46 England, on the other hand, have to play for pride.
01:48 Their big guns have just failed to fire.
01:50 You know, David Bale, Josh Butler, Ben Stokes, Johnny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, none of them have
01:56 looked, they've looked caricatures of the kind of players their reputation suggests
02:00 or that they're known to be.
02:01 So there's a lot of, you know, lots of drama happening in English cricket as we know.
02:07 David Billy said that he is so, he was so disappointed with the central contact system
02:13 that he's going to announce or has announced his retirement and so on.
02:17 So there is a team completely beleaguered which is England but defending champions and
02:23 on paper which looked the best team when the tournament started.
02:26 And then there's Australia, many times champion or the most number of times, started poorly,
02:32 have come into their own, have now got a bit of a crisis and yet if they win this match,
02:36 they're in for a place in the semis.
02:38 It's going to be an exciting match.
02:40 Thank you very much.