Cricket
ODI World Cup digest: de Kock leads another fearsome South Africa display; Netherlands seek Australia upset
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The Men’s 2023 ODI World Cup is now past the halfway stage as it builds towards the final on November 19. Each morning we will round up the latest action and news from the event and bring you the insights from our reporters on the ground.
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Top Story: de Kock, Klaasen lead South Africa’s demolition of Bangladesh
South Africa 382 for 5 (de Kock 174, Klaasen 90, Markram 60) beat Bangladesh 233 (Mahmudullah 111, Coetzee 3-62) by 149 runs
South Africa continue to bludgeon all before their path when they bat first, and it doesn’t seem to matter who’s in the way. This time, it was Bangladesh who were the unfortunate victims, with South Africa putting them to the sword in a 149-run demolition.
Match analysis: Making sense of South Africa’s sixy start to the World Cup
The top three totals at this World Cup belong to South Africa, including the only one over 400, which is also the highest tournament total ever. Six of the 19 hundreds scored so far come from South Africans. The leading run-scorer so far – Quinton de Kock – is South African and he also has the best individual score to date.
In his 150th ODI, de Kock slammed 174 – 14 short of the South African record still held by Gary Kirsten – and 26 shy of a double-ton, which batting coach JP Duminy confirmed is on de Kock’s wishlist as something to achieve before he quits the format after this World Cup. That de Kock appears to have saved his best for last has been obvious since the Sri Lanka game in Delhi but to suggest he is simply throwing his bat in his last few innings and hoping for the best would be doing a disservice to a player in scintillating touch.
Must Watch: Shane Bond and Cheteshwar Pujara on South Africa’s success
News headlines
Match preview
Australia vs Netherlands, Mumbai (2pm IST; 8.30am GMT; 7.30pm AEDT
There has long been a connection between Netherlands and Australian cricket. It is perhaps not quite as strong as South Africa’s connection to the current Dutch team but their captain, Scott Edwards, is an Australian citizen having grown up in Melbourne and played second XI cricket for Victoria. He has introduced a Netherlands team song that is a shameless rebrand of the song of his favourite Australian Football League club Richmond. From Edwards to former Dutch coach Ryan Campbell, to Tom Cooper, Timm van der Gugten, Michael Swart and Dirk Nannes, among others, plenty of Australian domestic players have had an impact on Netherlands cricket.
But there will be no love lost in Delhi on Wednesday. Netherlands are gunning for another big scalp, having already taken down South Africa and potentially missed an opportunity against Sri Lanka. Australia are looking to continue their momentum. They will not be taking the Netherlands lightly, but they would love a statement win having been tested at times against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Team news
Australia (probable) 1 David Warner, 2 Travis Head, 3 Mitchell Marsh, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Josh Inglis (wk), 6 Glenn Maxwell, 7 Marcus Stoinis, 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Josh Hazlewood, 11 Adam Zampa
Netherlands (probable) 1 Vikramjit Singh, 2 Max O’Dowd, 3 Colin Ackermann, 4 Bas de Leede, 5 Teja Nidamanuru, 6 Scott Edwards (capt & wk), 7 Sybrand Engelbrecht, 8 Roelof van der Merwe, 9 Logan van Beek, 10 Aryan Dutt, 11 Paul van Meekeren
Feature: Dear World Cup, please be more exciting, please?
Roughly halfway through the league stage, this World Cup has had three big upsets – Afghanistan’s stunning of Pakistan on Monday the latest. Ordinarily this would seem like plenty, but in this World Cup, it seems like not nearly enough.
None of the finishes have gone into the last over, and iconic moments have been in short supply (like Jonty Rhodes supermanning the stumps, say, or Ben Stokes’ backwards salmon-leap to take that outfield catch). Like the Death Star closing in on Alderaan, India’s storming towards the knockouts is also going almost exactly as the powers had intended.
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