Australia has upper hand in Trans-Tasman rivalry, as they won 7 out of 10 in world cup and defeated just thrice, and this time the rivalry is a bit special as it is going to play on Lord’s cricket ground.
one more batting paradise, and team prefer to chase, but the history of the current world cup shows none of the team successfully chased down the target over 250, except Bangladesh against West Indies, so mostly, win toss bat first contest would be shown tomorrow as well.
Though Lord’s ground favors batsmen, but also fast bowlers got success there as well, and since last couple of world cups, the left hand pacers show their dominance, so tomorrow the contest would be definitely interesting against T. Boult, M. Starc and J Behrendorff.
Regarding New Zealand team, M. Guptil and C. Munro are totally out of form, H. Nicholls could get entry in place of any one of them, mostly M. Guptil still might survive and get one more chance and same as T. Latham, as he is also out of form, throughout the world cup till now, T. Blundell should receive a chance in place of T Latham, but NZ might not take that much risk to replace T. Latham.
Regarding Australian team, it might be the same team, but as Australia is qualified for the semi-finals, so they can try other players, like S. Marsh in place of U. Khawaja, or may be provide rest to D. Warner and include S Marsh and provide one more chance to U Khawaja, same as in the bowling department and provide rest to their wicket takers, M. Starc and P. Cummins and could play with N. Coulter-Nile and K. Richardson with J. Behrendorff and N. Lyon as the spinner. So basically, now the Australian team would prefer to prepare the team for semi-final as the priority instead of just concentrating to win the match.
NZ 11: M. Guptil, H. Nicholls, K. Williamson, R. Taylor, T. Latham, J. Neesham, C. De Grandhomme, M. Santner, L. Ferguson, M. Henry, T. Boult
Aus 11: A. Finch, U. Khawaja, S. Marsh, S. Smith, G. Maxwell, M. Stoinis, A. Carey, N. Coulter-Nile, N. Lyon, J. Behrendorff, K. Richardson
