Laggan Rival India vs England :-"World Cup 2011 Preview"

After the controversies over Eden Gardens in Kolkata, it’s Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangaluru to host the 11th match of ICC World Cup 2011, India Vs England on Sunday, Feb 27th.

Both the teams, relished victories over minnows though India with a good lead against Bangladesh and England on a close end against Netherlands. It’s truly could become a competitive match if both the teams come up with a good squad for which India is coming along with Ashish Nehra this time with full fitness.

India:

Firstly, Tendulkar being checked for his fitness levels every now and then could be a speculative factor in Indian batting squad and the aggressive opener Sehwag could pose a threat to Strauss bowling squad. With its 350 plus scoring effort against Bangladesh, India easily sent a message to other nations stating their batting line up is firm and steady which apart from openers, the other in the line Kohli as world no.4 and Gambhir, Yuvraj yet to be heard with his bat and Dhoni are all set to buoy India on a high score win.

Coming to bowling side, Ashish Nehra gained his firm who has seen getting trained with pace attacker Zaheer Khan who will be opening the bowling attack. Though, they looked uncontrolled in binding Bangladesh for a low score, Khan, Harbhajan with his spin attack added by Pathan with the slow arm and Yuvraj as an all rounder could try their best to control England line up who are mostly used to pace attack. Indian’s spin could do the things well at Bangaluru.

Their long break from the first match could be an added advantage for home side to practice well ahead of a big match.

England:

It’s the batting side which saved cricket creators against minnow Netherlands otherwise could have been a disaster. But against India it’s all together a different ball game as they are playing against much experienced Indian bowling starting with Zaheer Khan. Strauss should keep in mind the same thing to start up the innings with Pietersen, Bill, Collingwood and Trott who are not easy to give their wicket away. Strauss coming with 88 on Netherlands could pose a threat
for Nehra and Khan initially and later the job will be taking up by Pietersen and Trott who have enough of experience to face sub continent pitch conditions.

Summoning almost 300 runs to a minnow team is not a good sign for England to force controlling bowling prowess over aggressive Indian line up. Anderson along with Broad who missed out Australian tour should actually use their total strength to cut down the runs for Indian side and for Broad it’s actually an advantageous warm up season which he recently passed by. He is coming with two five-for’s in warm up games. Swann being the only spinner on England side could be used for his entire spell on a tricky Bangaluru wicket.

India squad: MS Dhoni (capt/wk), Virender Sehwag(vice capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, R. Ashwin, Piyush Chawla, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel and S. Sreesanth.

England squad: Andrew Strauss (capt), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior (wk), Ajmal Shahzad, Graeme Swann, James Tredwell, Jonathan Trott, Luke Wright, Michael Yardy.