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New Zealand vs England Cricket World Cup Final Preview
Match: England vs New Zealand, Lord’s, London
Date: July 14, 2019, 10:30 AM (Local Time)
Pitch looks to be a good one (for Lord’s). Historically, it’s quite a low-scoring ground in ODIs, and England doesn’t have the finest of records here. The weather should be good, a bit warm. The Pitch looks like a golf green than a cricket pitch two days out. Some of the colors had drained from the surface area, but there’s still going to be some real grass come the 10.30 am start on Sunday.
England Team News: Bairstow appeared to squeeze his groin while batting in the semi-final, but he was not sent for a scan and seemed set to catch his place in an unchanged XI. Given the green shade on the pitch, it is highly unlikely that England will leave out one of their inform seamers to include Moeen Ali despite New Zealand have three left-handers in their top 6.
New Zealand Team News: Henry Nicholls undergo a fitness test on Saturday after tweaking a hamstring against India and Colin Munro is expected to take his place. The legspinner Ish Sodhi played in New Zealand’s last visit to Lord’s against Australia, but that was on a used deck, and they won’t take a chance.
England (probable) XI:
Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (c), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wk), Chris Woakes, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood
New Zealand (probable) XI:
Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Kane Williamson (c), Ross Taylor, Tom Latham (wk), James Neesham, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson
Interesting Stats:
- The influence of Roy and Bairstow’s opening partnership extends beyond numbers.
- The team batting first has won seven out of the previous 11 World Cup finals.
- The last two World Cup Finals has been won by the chasing team, India in Mumbai in 2011 and Australia at the MCG in 2015.
- England has won seven of their last nine encounters in ODIs with New Zealand. However, New Zealand has won both of their recent encounters at Lord’s by 51 runs in and by five wickets in 2008 & 2013 respectively.
- An interesting one as out of four World Cup finals played at Lord’s, the team in the away dressing room has won all of them. England will be in the home dressing room on Sunday.
