New Zealand demolished the English yesterday in St. Lucia. Their not-so-secret weapon - Bond, Shane Bond.
Bond and man of the match Scott Styris, limited England to 209/7 in their 50 overs. Bond bowled cleverly, dropping his pace to the mid-eighties to get the most out of the slow pitch. Bond will be a handful in this tournament as he averages 2 wickets per ODI with an average of 19. The English spectacularly collapsed from 133/3 to 138/7 before Liam Plunkett and Paul Nixon steadied the ship to take the score to 209.
In reply, New Zealand lost 3 early wickets, but Styris (87n.o)and Jacob Oram (63n.o.) grinded out the winning runs. England now are in danger of not making the Super Eights as the dangerous Kenya lie ahead.
In St Kitts, if the match had not been reduced to 40 overs per side due to overnight rain, South Africa may very well have fulfilled Rain, No Play's prediction of them wanting to retake the World Record for the highest score.
Luuk van Troost won the toss and put South Africa in! What followed was a massacre. Herschelle Gibbs hit 36 in one over off Dan van Bunge and his wasn't even the fastest scoring rate of the innings. Mark Boucher (75 n.o. at a scoring rate of 241.93), Gibbs (72 at 180), Jacques Kallis (128n.o. at 117+) and Graeme Smith (67 at 113+) all pillored the hapless Dutch who had 3 bowlers go at 12 or more runs an over.
In reply only Ryan ten Doeschate(57) offered any resistance as the Dutch fell for 132, losing by a mammoth 221 runs. This marked the third successive day that a minnow lost by over 200 runs. The mighty Indians are up next, with the weight of expectations of 1 billion people. They take on a Bangladesh side that will be in mourning after the untimely death on Manjural Islam in a road accident in Bangladesh. The Tigers will not lay down for the Indians and a upset here could very well be on the cards. In Jamaica, the Irish will try to knock out Pakistan at Sabina Park.
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