ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 will start on May 30 when host England will lock horns with South Africa. All teams have arrived in England and may have found the new English conditions slightly daunting. Also, England is currently the No.1 ODI side in the world. No wonder English fans have huge expectations from England to win the World Cup. But this also brings with it a huge pressure to perform. Generally, warm-up games play a good part in relieving the nerves and the pressure. In this article, we will see quick results summary of all the warm-up matches played from May 24 to May 28, 2019, ahead of the Cricket World Cup 2019.
All ten teams participating in the World Cup 2019, were to play two warm-up games each. The results of these games are not important. Their purpose is mainly to give some practice to all the players involved. The rules are also not strict. All 15 members can take part in the match in turns at some stage of the match.
Quick Schedule and Results Summary of the warm-up matches:
1) Pakistan vs Afghanistan Warm-Up Match (May 24)
This match was a great start to Afghanistan’s world cup campaign. Afghanistan declared to the world that they have come to England for some serious business. They started with a roar and defeated the 2017 Champions Trophy winner Pakistan by 3 wickets. Throughout the match, Afghanistan seemed quite good and played like a mature team.
The highlight of the match was the verbal tiff between Pakistan fast bowler Shaheen Afridi. When Afghanistan came out to chase the target of 263 set by Pakistan, Afghanistan decided to take an aggressive batting approach. Hazratullah Zazai hit three consecutive fours to Shaheen Afridi. This must have irked Shaheen Afridi. On the next ball, when Zazai played and missed, Afridi came walking towards the batsman while saying some words.
However, Zazai gave one of the best replies to the sledging I have seen. He looked down with his fist pointed towards the bowler and flicked his fingers in and out a number of times, asking the bowler to just stop talking and go back to bowl another bowl. It seems Afridi was not expecting this reply and looked confused about what to do or say next. He realized it was not a good idea to sledge at this point. And later the bad over turned even worse for Shaheen Afridi, when Zazai hit two more fours in the same over. Zazai repeated that hand expression once again, giving a clear signal to the bowler not to mess with him again. Afghanistan fans seemed delighted to witness the 5 fours in one over amidst all the drama.
Eventually, Afghanistan cruised quite comfortably towards the target. But at the end, Pakistan’s Wahab Riaz bowled some stunning yorkers and posed some serious challenge to Afghanistan’s dream of winning the match. But thanks to Hashmatullah Shahidi’s 74* from 102 balls and Mohd. Nabi’s 34 (41) towards the end, Afghanistan won the match by 3 wickets with 2 balls remaining.
2) South Africa vs Sri Lanka Warm-Up Match (May 24)
Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bowl first. This warm-up game served as a good platform for Hashim Amla to regain his form. Faf du Plessis, Rassie van der Dussen and all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo, all played well and helped South Africa reach a total of 338/7 in 50 overs.
In reply Sri Lanka got all out on 251 runs. Positive things for the Lankans were the good batting display by their captain Dimuth Karunaratne and their former captain Angelo Mathews. South Africa bowlers were really good on the day with Andile Phehlukwayo taking 4 wickets and Lungi Ngidi taking 2 wickets. Lungi gave only 12 runs in 6 overs.
South Africa won this match by a good margin of 87 runs.
3) England vs Australia Warm-Up Match (May 25)
This was an important match as Steve Smith and David Warner were playing with the team for the first time since the Sandpaper gate controversy. The crowd booed a lot to Warner and Steve Smith. However, Steve Smith later in an interview compared the incident to the water off the duck’s back, as he had continued batting calmly and sensibly. Eventually, he made a hundred scoring 116 runs from just 102 balls. This put Australia in a good position with a total score of 297/9 in 50 overs.
In return, England faltered at the start while chasing the target. Later James Vince and then Jos Butler tried to take the team home, but finally, it was Australia who won the match by 12 runs.
4) India vs New Zealand Warm-Up Match (May 25)
The warm-up game between India and NZ took place at The Oval. Pitch was quite green and was good for seamers. India won the toss and Virat Kohli decided to take the challenge of batting first on the seaming pitch.
Trent Boult used the pitch conditions very well and quickly sent Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and KL Rahul back to the pavilion. Even other batsmen could not play for a long time. India seemed in deep trouble and fortunately, Ravindra Jadeja made 54 from 50 balls and took India’s score to 179 runs.
New Zealand chased the target quite comfortably and won by 6 wickets. Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson batted well. Bumrah bowled good economical 4 overs in which he took 1 wicket and gave only 2 runs.
5) South Africa vs West Indies Warm-Up Match (May 26)
This warm-up match was marred by the rains. Fans got to see only 12.4 overs of the game. It was not a good session for West Indies bowlers, as they could not take even a single wicket in that short play. Amla continued his newly rediscovered good touch with the bat and scored 51 runs off 46 balls. Quinton de Kock also seemed quite comfortable and made 37 runs from 30 balls. When rain interrupted the play, South Africa score was 95/0.
6) Pakistan vs Bangladesh Warm-Up Match (May 26)
This match was completely washed out by rain. Even the toss did not happen.
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7) Australia vs Sri Lanka Warm-Up Match (May 27)
Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat first. It was not a good start for Sri Lanka as their opener and captain Dimuth Karunaratne got out on just 16 runs on the bowling of Kane Richardson. Lahiru Thirimanne, the other opener played a good knock of 56 runs from 69 before finally getting out to a beauty from Nathan Lyon. Sri Lanka managed to score 239/8 in 50 overs.
In reply, Australia comfortably achieved the target in 44.5 overs, losing 5 wickets along the way. Opener Usman Khawaja played a beautiful knock of 89 runs from 105 balls.
8) England vs Afghanistan Warm-Up Match (May 27)
This warm-up match took place at The Oval. The pitch was again good for bowlers. England decided to bowl first. Jofra Archer made justice to all the hype surrounding him and took 3 wickets in 5.4 overs. Afghanistan batting seriously struggled and at one point when the score was 92/8, even 100 runs total seemed difficult.
But thanks to the sensible knock of 44 from 42 balls by Mohammed Nabi, Afghanistan could manage a total of 160 runs in 38.4 overs. Dawlat Zadran too hit few big shots in the end. Part-time bowler Joe Root was awesome with his spin bowling and took 3 wickets for 22 runs in 6 overs.
In reply, England was quite clinical and achieved the target in just 17.3 overs. Jason Roy totally enjoyed batting in this warm-up game and scored 89 runs from 46 balls. Afghanistan managed to take only 1 wicket and that was taken by Mohd. Nabi. England won easily by 9 wickets.
9) West Indies vs New Zealand Warm-up Match (May 28)
Many experts are predicting that West Indies might be the dark horse of this World Cup 2019. And in this warm-up match against New Zealand, West Indies showed the world why they are one of the serious contenders for the big trophy.
New Zealand won the toss and decided to bowl first. West Indies started fairly well with Chris Gayle hitting some big shots. But soon Trent Boult took his wicket when Kane Williamson took a clean catch at mid-off. Gayle made 36 runs from 22 balls.
Shai Hope, Evin Lewis, and Shimron Hetmyer played some awesome innings and made sure West Indies would score a massive total. Later the super-destructive batsman Andre Russel played a demolishing knock of 54 runs from just 25 balls. Thus, West Indies put a big total of 421 runs in 49.2 overs on the scoreboard.
In reply, New Zealand did not have a good start, as they lost their star batsman Guptill for just 5 runs in 18 balls. Henry Nicholls also later joined Guptill in the dressing room after getting out on 15 runs of 17 balls. Ross Taylor too got out for just 2 runs from 15 balls. But it was the new wicket-keeper batsman Tom Blundell and the ever-reliable captain Kane Williamson who steadied the ship.
Tom Blundell went on to score a hundred but later Carlos Brathwaite took his wicket and put an end to his batting juggernaut. Kane Williamson made 85 runs from 64 balls. All this was not enough, as NZ got all out on 330 and West Indies won the match by 91 runs.
10) India vs Bangladesh Warm-up Match (May 28)
This was a great warm-up match for Team India as a whole, except for Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, and Vijay Shankar. Almost all other players gained good confidence from the match.
Bangladesh won the toss and asked India to bat. Virat continued his good touch. KL Rahul scored 108 runs from 99 balls. Dhoni was hitting big shots and looked amazing all along. KL Rahul hit beautiful shots all around the ground and was a treat to watch. India finally took the total to 359/7 in 50 overs
Bangladesh came to chase the massive target of 360 runs with some determination and had a good start, but when the score was 49/0, Jasprit Bumrah took two back-to-back wickets, one of Soumya Sarkar and other of Shakib Al Hasan. Shakib had to deal with a golden duck, as was out on zero on the first ball. That was a superb yorker from Bumrah!
Later opener Liton Das and wicket-keeper Musfiqur Rahim played quite sensibly and helped Bangladesh reach around 160 runs in 31 overs. But Liton Das got stumped out by MS Dhoni-Chahal combo. And then started the fall of Bangladesh innings. Later Kuldeep took three wickets and regained his form which he had lost in the IPL.
India won the match by a hefty margin of 95 runs.
So we saw the quick results summary of all the warm-up matches ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. Hope you enjoyed going through them. Feel free to comment and share. Now that you have seen the performances of the warm-up games, would you like to predict the top 4 teams to qualify for the semi-finals? Comment below.
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Rahul Choudhary says
Very useful information