England vs Australia, the second knockout encounter between the team after 44 years. First semi-final occurred between the teams in 1975, first ever cricket world cup. Australian left arm fast medium Gary Gilmore took Australia to the final after taking 6 wicket in his world cup debut match as well having the highest score of the match. In the current world cup, M. Starc, a left arm fast bowler, is in a very good form and J. Behrendorff, one more left arm fast- medium, is also providing good support to M. Starc, and England needs to be very careful.
England is the only team, having consecutive five world cup semi-final entrance, with 2 defeat in the semi-final and 3 victories. Their last semi-final entrance was in 1992 world cup. England never came to semi-final since last 27 years, but today’s England team is totally different. One more interesting stats in semi-final for England is in all their semi-final, they batted first, whether they won the top or not.
Australia, the only unbeaten team in the semi-final or say the champion of the semi-final, whether they needed to chase down the target or defend the target, is 7 times semi-final winner.
Edgbaston cricket ground at Birmingham is witness of the very famous tie match between Australia and South Africa in 1999 cricket world cup semi-final, the only tie encounter in the ODI world cup knockout matches. Tomorrow, again it may become the witness of very interesting match between one of the world cup winner contender, England and unbeatable semi-finalist, Australia. Also interesting to see the weather, which shows the isolated thunderstorm as of now. One more interesting thing to see about the toss, as England always had first batting in all their previous semi-final matches, and on the other hand, Australia used to choose bat first, when they won the toss in their previous semi-final. Also the history of the second half of the current world cup suggests to have bat first after winning the toss, while team will be definitely taking the DLS calculation in their account.
Australia has the history in the world cup, when they needed to defend, they won all their 6 matches, but when they needed to chase the target, they only won the match against Afghanistan and lost their two matches, so mostly they prefer to bat first and put the big target on the opponent. They may come with the same eleven, 4 batsmen, 2 batting all rounder, 1 wicket keeper and 4 bowlers.
On the other hand England also had very good record of defending the target in the current world cup and 5 success in defending the target, while having chasing the target, they had just one success against West Indies and 3 defeat. They would also like to go with the same eleven, 2 batsmen, 2 wicket keepers, 1 batting all rounder, 3 all rounder and 3 bowlers.
Australia 11: A. Finch, D. Warner, S. Smith, P. Handscomb, G. Maxwell, M. Stoinis, A. Carey, P. Cummins, M. Starc, J. Behrendorff, N. Lyon.
England 11: J. Roy, J. Bairstow, J. Root, E. Morgan, B. Stokes, J. Buttler, C. Woakes, J. Archer, L. Plunkett, A. Rashid, M. Wood.
