The Men’s 2023 ODI World Cup is underway in India and runs from October 5 until November 19. Each morning we will round up the latest action and news from the event and bring you the insights from our reporters on the ground.
—
Top Story: Australia put World Cup campaign back on track
Australia 215 for 5 (Inglis 58, Marsh 52, Madushanka 3-38) beat Sri Lanka 209 (Perera 78, Nissanka 61, Zampa 4-47) by five wickets
Australia chased down Sri Lanka’s sub-par 209 with some ease, cantering to a five-wicket win in Lucknow to revive their flagging World Cup campaign. The result leaves Sri Lanka second-last on the table with three losses from three, and essentially needing only wins from hereon to stand a chance of making it to the semi-finals.
Match analysis: Zampa hangs in there to help turn Australia’s fortunes
Adam Zampa had come into this game with figures of 1 for 123 from the 18 overs he had bowled across the defeats to India and South Africa. He had already been struggling with hip, neck and shoulder niggles, and in the lead-up to this game had suffered a back spasm as well.
That deadly cocktail of form and fitness may have led other teams to bench Zampa and pick another spinner, but Australia had no other spinner to turn to. Here he was, therefore, feeling – as he put it at his post-match press conference – “like adrenaline was going to get me through and a bit of Panadeine Forte.”
Must Watch: Tom Moody on Adam Zampa
News headlines
Match preview
Netherlands vs South Africa, Lucknow (2pm IST; 8.30am GMT; 7.30pm AEST)
South Africa were stunned by Netherlands at last year’s Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia. So when the two sides meet in Dharamsala on Tuesday, they will not be looking at Netherlands as a weaker opponent. At the same time, they should not be under any pressure. This time it’s a longer format, which reduces the chances of an upset. When these sides played two ODIs earlier this year, South Africa thrashed Netherlands by eight wickets and 146 runs.
A bigger reason, perhaps, is South Africa’s recent form – they are on a five-match winning streak. In each of those games, they batted first, smashed more than 300, crossed 400 twice, and won by 100-plus runs. Arguably, they have the strongest batting unit at this World Cup.
Team news
South Africa (probable): 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Temba Bavuma (capt), 3 Rassie van der Dussen, 4 Aiden Markram, 5 David Miller, 6 Heinrich Klaasen, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Kagiso Rabada, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Tabraiz Shamsi/Gerald Coetzee
Netherlands (probable): 1 Vikramjit Singh, 2 Max O’Dowd, 3 Colin Ackermann, 4 Bas de Leede, 5 Teja Nidamanuru, 6 Scott Edwards (capt & wk), 7 Sybrand Engelbrecht, 8 Roelof van der Merwe, 9 Logan van Beek /Ryan Klein, 10 Aryan Dutt, 11 Paul van Meekeren
