<\/p>\n
AHMEDABAD: Defen\u00adding champions England face New Zealand in Thursday\u2019s opening match of the World Cup in Ahm\u00adedabad in a rematch of their epic showdown in the 2019 final at Lord\u2019s.<\/p>\n
England and New Zealand look pretty even when one looks at their overall head-to-head record in ODIs showing both have won 44 games each while three matches ended in tie and four had no result. The record in their World Cup matches is also almost equal.<\/p>\n
However, the current England due to their relatively better profile hold a slight edge over their New Zealand counterparts.<\/p>\n
Jos Buttler\u2019s men come into the 10-team tournament with the depth to live up to their billing as one of the title favourites. Their campaign begins at the world\u2019s biggest cricket arena, the 130,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium.<\/p>\n
England have eight members from the squad that triumphed on home soil in the last World Cup under Eoin Morgan.<\/p>\n
Buttler has slipped into the role of England\u2019s white-ball captain with relative ease since Morgan\u2019s retirement, leading them to the T20 World Cup crown in Australia last year.<\/p>\n
Young batter Harry Brook is likely to make his tournament debut replacing Ben Stokes, who is nursing a minor hip injury, in today\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n
England sacrificed opener Jason Roy to accommodate the 24-year-old Brook, who has been marked out as a future superstar because of his explosive batting.<\/p>\n
Stokes, who reversed his shock ODI retirement to return to the squad, has not yet been ruled out of Thursday\u2019s opener but Buttler revealed why England\u2019s number four batter was not fully fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe [Stokes] is got a slight niggle with his hip. Fingers crossed that it will be good news for us,\u201d Buttler told reporters at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s working hard with the physios and we\u2019ll know more when the guys arrive for training [later] today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Test captain Stokes, who has long been nursing a troublesome knee, is back in the one-day setup purely as a batter and his record-breaking 182 against New Zealand last month proved what he is capable even in a reduced role.<\/p>\n
England are naturally wary of rushing him so early in a six-week long tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll make the right call here — if he\u2019s not fit to play, he\u2019s not fit to play,\u201d Buttler said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the time to take big risk on someone at the start of the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brook, an automatic pick in England\u2019s Test side and part of their T20 World Cup-winning team last year, is likely to be the beneficiary of circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarry, we all know, what a fantastic player he is. The start of his international career has been outstanding in T20 cricket and in the Test format,\u201d Buttler said. \u201cHe has not played loads of ODI cricket but it\u2019s a format that should suit him perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n
SOUTHEE TO MISS OPENER<\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile, stand-in New Zealand skipper Tom Latham said fast bowler Tim Southee will miss their World Cup opener as he continues his recovery from thumb surgery.<\/p>\n Southee dislocated and fractured his thumb while attempting to take a catch during an ODI against England last month but was cleared to join the team in India having progressed well in his recovery.<\/p>\n New Zealand are also without regular skipper Kane Williamson for the opener as he recovers from a knee injury.<\/p>\n \u201cNo Kane and no Tim [Southee] as well,\u201d Latham told reporters. \u201cHe\u2019s unavailable for selection just in terms of what happened to his thumb … but he\u2019s recovering nicely.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s nearly two weeks post-surgery so fingers crossed he can keep recovering. It\u2019s a bit of a day-by-day process with him in terms of what that looks like.<\/p>\n \u201cBut fingers crossed he\u2019ll be available sooner rather than later as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier on Wednesday, Latham said regular Williamson spent the last few months nursing a knee injury but the form he has showed since his return ahead of the World Cup made it seem like he had never been away.<\/p>\n Williamson\u2019s participation at the event was thrown into doubt when he underwent surgery for a torn anterior cruciate ligament in April but he has impressed in warm-ups against Pakistan and South Afr\u00adica.<\/p>\n The 33-year-old will skip their tournament opener to build up his fitness, but Latham is delighted with his progress.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to see Kane back and to see him batting,\u201d Latham said at an earlier press conference. \u201cIt\u2019s like he never left, to be honest, in terms of batting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to see him moving really well too. He\u2019s playing all the shots he used to play.\u201d<\/p>\n Latham, who will lead New Zealand on Thursday, said his team would treat their opener like any other game.<\/p>\n Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AHMEDABAD: Defen\u00adding champions England face New Zealand in Thursday\u2019s opening match of the World Cup in Ahm\u00adedabad in a rematch of their epic showdown in the 2019 final at Lord\u2019s. England and New Zealand look pretty even when one looks at their overall head-to-head record in ODIs showing both have won 44 games each while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/651dd0ac9a170.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}