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"Cricket Thread"

A thread to discuss cricket incase anyone else is a fan like me.

I thought Pakistan V West Indies was going to be close. West Indies managed to salvage a decent total and then took a lot of key wickets very cheaply at the start.

Australia are cruising at the moment and Canada are doing alright at 97-2 at around halfway.

Well the opening match provided an bit of an upset in my opinion I thought Pakistan would beat the West Indies but all credit to the home nation.

Australia vs Scotland should be a banker for the Aussies and I think Kenya will beat Canada today.

England should have set a better target. They had a perfect chance to make at least 250 but messed it up.

The Aussies bowled well though for the most part and easily made the target in the end.

I can see Australia winning without losing a wicket here.

Got the Aussies tomorrow hopefully we can continue our form from the triangular series to get our confidence up ready for NZ in the 1st World Cup match.

I think the result of south Africa vs Ireland was quite something as well... only 35 runs between them, and South Africa bowled out for 197. Quite surprised to see the Irish give such a highly rated-team a run for their money!

Bermuda's batting, by the looks of the scorecard was expectedly shocking, though. And at the lunchbreak, India and Pakistan look to have given Holland and Canada plenty to worry about. It's not all surprises in the warm-up games! :)

We looked a bit dodgy in the batting at one point but nice to see we got over it and posted a good total.

The bowling was good too and Pietersens catch for the 3rd wicket was world class even though he was a bit modest to say the least!

Well, that was quick. England struggled their way to 286 and then bowled Bermuda out for 45. Would have been nice to see more runs from England and perhaps a longer workout for the bowlers but the result was nice.

First warm-up match tomorrow against Bermuda, hopefully England can get the ball rolling straight away in the right direction.

England's World Cup squad has just been announced. Here it is:

Vaughan (capt)
Joyce
Bell
Pietersen
Strauss
Collingwood
Flintoff
Bopara
Nixon
Dalrymple
Plunkett
Anderson
Mahmood
Lewis
Panesar

Hopefully Vaughan's injury worries will be behind him but I believe it's the right choice for captain. Also, Anderson, Lewis and Pietersen have all been injured or are struggling with injury so there is some concern there.

I would assume that it'll be Joyce and Strauss to lead off with Bell, Pietersen, Collingwood, Flintoff, Vaughan from 3-7 in some order. You've then got Nixon as wicket keeper. That would leave 3 out of Dalrymple, Plunkett, Anderson, Mahmood, Lewis and Panesar.

That's quite interesting because it seems that England will be relying quite heavily on the all rounders.

No place for Read meaning no wicket keeper backup but there are procedures in place for injuries.

The main surprise was Bopara instead of Loye. I can't really see where Bopara would fit. He's described as an all rounder. That makes for quite a lot of options but I would have liked to see a bit of batting backup but it's not that bad a squad. Certainly a match for anyone when firing.