The second match of the scheduled three at the T20 World Cup on Saturday sees England looking to extend their title defence when they go up against an already eliminated Namibia side in the latest Group B clash in Antigua.
Namibia will be departing the competition at the end of this match and if England don’t win then they will be on the following plane home. England aren’t guaranteed to be through with a win but they would be handily placed.
England
It still has to be said that England were very ordinary in their opening two matches and that some of the decisions were questionable to say the least but they have started to put that behind them and got themselves back in a position where they slightly control their own destiny in that their net run rate will be higher than the Scotland one should they win this which would take away the chance of Scotland losing their last game by a certain amount and still progressing.
England were ruthless with the ball in the last game and while that was a very impressive performance, and one which certainly shouldn’t be downplayed, we should acknowledge that it was only against Oman who are the weakest team in the group. They are probably in a no win situation here in many ways but if they can win and win well and build some confidence should they progress then that will do their long-term prospects no harm.
Namibia
This hasn’t been the campaign that Namibia would have wanted to put together. Although they won their opening game it was clear that they weren’t very happy with how tight things got and since then they have come apart at the seams a little bit. They couldn’t really get going against Scotland in their second match and then offered nothing in terms of a batting showing against Australia in their latest game. That all means that they are going home but would want a strong performance to depart with.
I would imagine that they will be determined to show what they have got with the bat because they haven’t really done that yet. Their top three haven’t really got going and even when they have scored runs it has been at a pedestrian pace and they are better than that. To be fair they have done alright with the ball apart from a couple of overs where Scotland got away from them so if their batters can free up and deliver they could still be dangerous.
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Team News
England would probably want to go in with the same XI that got the job done against Oman in the last game but whether regular injury victims Jofra Archer and Reece Topley can go again in such a short space of time could be an issue.
Namibia have been searching for the right combinations throughout this competition but haven’t really found them. It might be an issue with the order rather than the personnel so that might be what needs to change.
Betting
It has to be said that this one has the potential to be one of those blowout contests unless we finally see the best of Namibia with the bat so this isn’t the easiest game to bet on. I only really say that because we’re still not exactly sure what England are about in this competition. I would expect England to win but not quite as cosily as they won on Thursday but rather than bet on the match outcome I’ll take one in the player markets.
That comes in the form of Adil Rashid to be the top England bowler. He was all over Oman here on Thursday and you sense he’ll have as much joy against a Namibia side who were all at sea against Adam Zampa in their last match. The Aussie leggie took four quick wickets in that match and I wouldn’t be surprised if Rashid follows suit. He has bowled pretty well in this tournament and while Namibia are likely to be ok against the pace bowlers, they struggle against spin. 10/3 on Rashid to be the top England bowler makes a lot of sense.
Tips
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