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ICC World Cup 2019: Going whose way? Neither have teams scored 500, nor have the bowlers taken early wickets

One said the batting team breaching the 500-run mark was only a matter of time.

World Cup

Bengaluru, June 25: The ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 has turned out to be an interesting affair. There were two school of thought before the first ball of the tournament was delivered. One said the batting team breaching the 500-run mark was only a matter of time and Indian captain Virat Kohli said England could be the first team to do it, thanks to their explosive line-up of the batters.

WC Special | Fixtures | Squads

The other group felt that since the World Cup is being played in the typical overcast English conditions, swing bowling will make an impact at the end of the day.

Tuesday (June 25) marked the 27th day of the tournament and it will not be an exaggeration to say that neither side has come out victorious yet.

While the highest team total so far has been 397 scored by England against a hapless Afghanistan, the average run in opening partnership in this World Cup has been 44.36, as per statistics provided by the ICC , and it is one of the best since the tournament's inception in 1975. The seamers haven't have won it either.

The batting sides still have some reasons to smile as centuries haven't been too sparse in this World Cup and 300-plus scores have been achieved at a fair regularity. But for the fast bowlers, this World Cup has been disappointing on many counts.

Ball swung, but not as expected

According to the ICC, the average swing generated by bowlers in this edition is 0.649°, compared to 1.130 in the 2007 edition in the West Indies and 0.993 in Australia and New Zealand in 2015. This year's swing is more comparable to that in 2011 (0.637°) but such comparison doesn't make the seamers happy either since the 2011 edition was played on the dry and slow surfaced in the subcontinent. Even 10:30 am starts to the game haven't made any significant difference to swing bowling, the international body has said.

The captains went as per the conventional wisdom of winning the toss and electing to field first in the initial period. As many as six out of the first seven captains who won the toss elected to field first (Afghanistan's Gulbadin Naib was the only exception versus Australia). But by the time the tournament entered into its fourth week, the toss-winning captains started choosing to bat, thanks to some solid batting performances by teams like India and Australia. Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmed was perhaps the unluckiest among all teams to have faced a major backlash for choosing to bowl after winning the toss (against India). In the last eight matches, only team has won batting second (New Zealand against South Africa).

Story first published: Tuesday, June 25, 2019, 15:27 [IST]
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