World Cup Group C - England v New Zealand

Internationals / Editor / 14 March 2007 / Leave a Comment

World Cup Group C - England v New Zealand, Friday 13.30

England begin their World Cup campaign on Friday with a crucial group game against New Zealand. Both sides will expect to progress to the Super Eight stage from a group that also contains Canada and Kenya, but the points that are carried forward will be important in the scramble for semi-final places.

These two sides are familiar foes, having faced each other four times in the recent Commonwealth Bank Series in Australia. They won two matches apiece and followed up those games with impressive wins over the Aussies.

England returned home with the trophy after winning the two match final, whilst the Kiwis whitewashed Australia in the Chappell-Hadlee trophy that followed it. Both sides have therefore been instrumental in knocking the Aussies off top spot in the world rankings and making the World Cup the wide open tournament that it is.

However, both sides received reality checks on arriving in the Caribbean for their warm-up matches. The Black Caps lost to Bangladesh and England suffered an Aussie backlash, although both won their other preparatory games, against Sri Lanka and Bermuda respectively.

These two have therefore had similar preparations for this tournament and are evenly matched in the markets. New Zealand trade at 12 to lift the trophy, with England available at 13. The Kiwis are slight favourites in Group C, trading at 1.92 to England's 2.06 to win Friday's clash and at 1.95 to win the group.

Although England finished stronger in Australia, edging the Kiwis out of the series final, New Zealand have been in better form over a longer period. From the beginning of 2006, until the start of the Commonwealth Bank Series, they won 10 and lost six One Dayers. In the same period England won four and lost 12.

These two sides have met just once before in a World Cup fixture, at Ahmedabad in 1996, in the opening match of that tournament. The Kiwis squeezed home by 11 runs, thanks mainly to Nathan Astle's century. With Astle recently retired, current skipper Stephen Fleming is the only survivor from that previous World Cup clash.

Fleming struggled in the Commonwealth Bank Series until hitting a rather slow ton in his side's final match at Brisbane. He followed that with an unbeaten 70 in the first match of the Chappell-Hadlee series.

Fleming boasts a decent record in the Caribbean, as he arrived there with the ninth highest ever positive difference between ODI career average and average in the West Indies (32.15 overall compared with 43.77 in the West Indies). His average against England is also higher than his career average.

The Kiwi skipper is a veteran of 270 ODIs and he reflects the more experienced nature of the Black Caps' line-up. All of the major eight nations have total squad ODI appearances of over 1,000, apart from England, whose squad totals 622 ODIs, less than half of that of New Zealand.

Much has been made of the unique Caribbean conditions, which England struggled to cope with against Australia last Friday. Of the 13 teams to have played in the West Indies before, only Scotland's squad have played less games there than England. Should they progress in this tournament - they trade at 4.2 to reach the semi-finals - it clearly will not be because of their experience.

England fell away against Australia after starting well. They slipped from 122 for one to 197 all out, suggesting they might need to consider the composition of their batting line-up. The Caribbean pitches seem to become harder to bat on as the innings progresses, making an out-of-form Andrew Flintoff vulnerable at number six.

'Freddie' is a notoriously slow starter against spin bowling and with slow bowlers likely to be utilised in the middle and later overs, a move up the order might be considered. He averages 28.11 batting at number six and 45.25 at number five.

Flintoff has struggled with the bat recently, hitting just one half century in 21 innings. England's hopes rest on his and Kevin Pietersen's shoulders, although Michael Vaughan played encouragingly against Australia.

A fluent 62 suggested the England captain is somewhere near full fitness and ready to prove that his ODI career average of 27.7 is not a true reflection of his talents. However, he averages below that both against New Zealand and in the Caribbean.

It is actually the Black Caps who have had the injury worries ahead of this clash, with seamer Mark Gillespie missing with a shoulder problem and Peter Fulton doubtful after breaking a finger last week. However, key all-rounder Jacob Oram seems set to play after suffering a similar injury against Australia last month.

Despite averaging only 21.93 in ODIs, Oram plundered 261 runs in the Commonwealth Bank Series, at an average of 87 and a strike rate of 124.28. He cleared the rope 12 times and provided he isn't too discomforted by the cast on his finger, might represent good value in any six hitting markets.

Oram has taken just three wickets in his last nine ODIs, suggest his transition from bowling all-rounder in the 2003 tournament to batting all-rounder now is almost complete. He trades at 10.5 to be the top Kiwi run scorer.

Pietersen is the clear favourite to head England's runscoring charts, trading at 3.4. Although he has only batted once this year - making 82 at Melbourne against Australia - Pietersen has the most impressive runscoring pedigree of anyone in England's line-up.

An average of 56.6 and strike rate of 94.9 suggests England will be basing their totals around his batting. He trades at 23 to be the tournament's top runscorer and will want to get off to a flying start against New Zealand, the only Test playing nation that he has not played a ODI against.