The Men’s 2023 ODI World Cup is now building towards the final on 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.
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Top Story: Head produces the winning hand in 388 vs 383 nail-biter
Australia 388 (Head 109, Warner 81, Phillips 3-37) beat New Zealand 383 for 9 (Ravindra 116, Neesham 58, Mitchell 54, Zampa 3-74) by five runs
In the foothills of the highest peaks in the world, Dharamsala hosted the highest-scoring World Cup game of all-time as Australia held off New Zealand in a 771-run thriller that reached giddying heights and featured records galore.
Match analysis: Head’s successful comeback vindicates Australia’s gamble
It was as much in what followed as it was in what Travis Head did that you saw why Australia chose to stick with a batter with a broken hand and, in effect, agreed to have a squad of 14 for the first half of the World Cup. If they got lucky, that is.
Head is a bit of an old-school Australian batter. He loves to hit the ball square, loves to hit it hard, and wears a big moustache in 2023, which is reminiscent of the cold ruthlessness of Allan Border and David Boon.
For six weeks leading into his comeback, Head has barely had a proper net. On the day before this match, Head batted for about 20 minutes. He got bowled, he got leading edges, and he shanked a few, but did not look in any discomfort. Then again, the pitches in the nets were not great. That hit was enough for him to be confident and give it a whack come match day.
Match reaction: ‘2019 was the first thing I thought of when coming off’
James Neesham can be philosophical about it. “You worked for six and a half hours during the day, and it comes down to potentially two deliveries,” Neesham said. “And four years ago, we worked for two months, and it came down to one delivery. It’s just the nature of the game.”
Match report: van Meekeren spearheads rout of Bangladesh
Netherlands 229 (Edwards 68) beat Bangladesh 142 (van Meekeren 4-23) by 87 runs
Must Watch: Ravindra a great in the making?
News headlines
Match preview
India vs England, Lucknow (2pm IST; 8.30am GMT; 7.30pm AEDT)
India versus England was among the most anticipated matches of the 2023 ODI World Cup. After all, it is the pre-tournament favourites (and the hosts) taking on the defending champions. But no one had imagined that England would be hanging by the thinnest of threads by the time this game would arrive.
With just one win from five games, England are lurking near the bottom of the points table. If they are to make it to the knockouts from here, every atom in this universe needs to work for them – there are that many permutations they need to go in their favour.
Team news
India (probable) 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
England (probable) 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Dawid Malan, 3 Joe Root, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Jos Buttler (capt, wk), 6 Harry Brook, 7 Liam Livingstone, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 David Willey, 10 Gus Atkinson, 11 Adil Rashid