Bangalore: India and England, two of the top favorite teams, would face each other in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore on a sweet Sunday.
While India would be on song with home support, England seems to be the most balanced team at the moment.
The two teams are meeting in the world cup after a gap of eight years while their last meeing in an ODI was held on 26th Novemebr, 2008.
India had easily surpassed the target of 274 runs losing just four wickets with 38 balls remaining.
Again in the world cup's last meeting on 26th February 2003 India emerged as victorious by 82 runs.
So, England may be reminded of these last results and they must be raring to change the course.
In their first match both India and England beat their opponents with rather ease but they faced considerable resistance too. Canada scored 292 against England batting first while Bangladesh scored 283 chasing the target of set 371 runs by India.
When the match starts at 2:30 P.M. Indian Standard Time, all these analysis would be put behind and the toss winning team would like to put a big score on the board particularly if England bats first.
England may not have a very explosive opening pair like Sachin and Sehwag but they have a more disciplined batting line up, at least on paper. Kevin Pietersen did well against with Andrew Strauss in his new role of opener putting a century partnership. Other batsmen too chipped in with valuable contributions.
Apart from Sehwag and Sachin India have another pair of destruction batsmen in the form of Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli. Yuvraj Singh may be considered a weak link but then the Englishmen would have to face MS Dhoni and Yousuf Pthan.
England can take respite in a disciplined bowling Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad and James Anderson. Added to that would be the spin venom of Grame Swann. It would be real test for Swann against the explosive battery of attacking batsmen.
Munaf Patel has done well in the last match against Bangladesh taking four wickets but Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh are still to find the penetration needed to dent into the solid batting line up of England. Ashish Nehra is also expected to play if declared fully fit.
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