England and Pakistan would be disappointed with the way they have performed. The hopes for a semi-final berth for the Englishmen were extinguished quite a while back. Pakistan, meanwhile, needs to conquer the unthinkable. It is the battle for a Champions Trophy spot for one and an unimaginable semi-final spot for the other, as England takes on Pakistan at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
And possibly for the final time for both the teams involved, the captains take to the middle of the pitch for the toss. England won the toss and elected to bat first.
FOLLOW LIVE HERE: ENG VS PAK LIVE SCORE, ICC Cricket World Cup
England, the defending champions, have been a shadow of their former self. They have only won two of their eight games. The second win came for them in their last game against the Netherlands after a span of 29 days. The no holds barred approach with the bat has given them a lot of success, but it has backfired on them in this tournament. In fact, it has been surprising to see their batting order just crumble under the lights, as there has not been one standout batter except for Dawid Malan who has bolstered the top order at all. Whatever may come, with Bangladesh currently dealing with Australia, a win is needed for England to ensure their spot in the Champions Trophy in 2025.
Pakistan, on the other hand, have had a dream start to their tournament turn into a nightmare. Ever since they lost against India, they have not registered a single win. Similar to England, their biggest woes have been from the batting top-order who, along with the likes of skipper and talisman batter Babar Azam, have failed miserably to get Pakistan off to a good start oftentimes. Except for Fakhar Zaman’s match-saving knock against New Zealand in their last match, there has been a dreary spell of dismal top-order batting performances being put out throughout the tournament.
But today, a win is not enough to guarantee Pakistan the spot. No, they need to win under very specific conditions.
Since, Pakistan have lost the toss, then are now under the pump and are pretty much out of the tournament as this renders the Pakistan side almost helpless in their quest to achieve the required Net Run Rate (NRR) in order to topple New Zealand over from the fourth spot.
But, there are very specific, far-etched circumstances under which Pakistan can still qualify. Here are the folowing:
If England score – Paksitan must win inside
20 runs – win within 1.3 overs
50 runs – win within 2 overs
100 runs – win within 2.5 overs
150 runs – win within 3.4 overs
200 runs – win within 4.3 overs
300 runs – win within 6.1 overs
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Captain’s Comments:
Jos Buttler (ENG): We gonna bat first. Looks a good wicket, looks a bit dry and we want to make first use of it. We are going with the same team today. We are playing well together and would look to justice to ourselves. (On David Willey) Emotional day for him, he has been great for us. So, we talked about trying to enjoy it and take it all in.
Babar Azam (PAK): We wanted to bat first, but toss is not in our hands. We have good bowlers and we would look to bowl them out cheaply. We have one change – Hasan Ali is not playing and Shadab Khan comes in his place.
Playing XIs:
England
Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Jos Buttler(w/c), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, David Willey, Gus Atkinson, Adil Rashid
Pakistan
Abdullah Shafique, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Agha Salman, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Haris Rauf
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