T20 World Cup: Calculators back in pocket, England gets their math right | Cricket News
In a match that lasted 99 deliveries – one short of a complete innings in England’s The Hundred – Jos Buttler’s men pulled off a ruthless win over a hapless Oman. England won with 101 balls remaining, in what was a ‘Net Run Rate 101’ masterclass.
When Buttler won the toss and opted to bowl first, a few eyebrows were raised. Conventional wisdom suggests that a team looking for a NRR boost would opt to bat first, pile on as many runs as possible and then, with the scoreboard pressure on, restrict the opposition to a low total. Oman could have scraped through a total close to 100 and England would have struggled to win a margin big enough for a serious advantage.
But England went with what the conditions dictated – a pitch that had good bounce and turn on offer for a solid bowling attack against a struggling batting unit – rather than the said conventional wisdom. They saw in the previous two matches in Antigua that the team batting first struggled to post a total, so backed their bowlers to do the damage and try to chase it down as quickly as possible.And so they went on to blow Oman away for 47 in 13.2 overs, with the high pace of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood doing the early damage followed Adil Rashid’s crafty wr-spin. Chasing 48, England’s batters wasted no time – there was a grand total of one defensive stroke in the run-chase – as they chased it down in 3.1 overs to power their NRR past Scotland and wrestle back some momentum that they struggled to find in their first two matches.
Speed matters
The key to dismantling Oman was the speed that Archer and Wood were clocking. “The thing is being an associate team, being very honest, you don’t get to face any of the bowlers who are 140 plus, who are top quality. So Jofra and Wood, I would say at this moment, they are the fastest bowlers in cricket,” Oman captain Aqib Ilyas said.
“Being an associate player, a lot goes mind. Once you don’t face any of the bowlers, once in a year if you play any of the fast bowlers that are 145 plus, not just 140, it comes at the back of your mind that they might come at you, they might hit you… anything is possible. We have to work on it because next time if we come to a major tournament, we can’t bat like this.”
For England, it was the perfect day. For all the pre-match talk about making up NRR margins over two matches combined, they did it in one match. Now Net Run Rate is no longer a factor in this group, after all the chatter about Australia suggesting they might go slow against Scotland to push England out. Now the equation is simple. England have to just beat Namibia, weather permitting in North Sound, and hope Australia’s deep-rooted pride as a sporting nation will kick in against Scotland.
As much as Aussie pacer Josh Hazlewood suggested that it is to their benefit (and rest of the teams) to send England home early, it is hard to see them lose against Scotland. Rain interventions, England have no say over. But as Buttler suggested with a twinkle in his eye in the post-match chat, they were never bothered about the outside noise about England stumbling in another World Cup defence. They are up and running … nay, sprinting.
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