World Cup 2019: Australia aim to grab top-spot in dead rubber against South Africa

Tags: Cricket World Cup 2019, Australia, South Africa

Published on: Jul 05, 2019

Such a pity and Australia and South Africa who, over the years, have produced one of the greatest rivalries in cricket, will feature in a game of no consequence at Manchester on Saturday. Twenty years back in England, these two sides produced back-to-back fascinating games which concluded in the Edgbaston humdinger. Things have been drastically different this time.

Australia do have something to gain from the match. A win will guarantee them the number one spot at the end of the league stages. And that will be some achievement for a side that though defending champions were struggling till a year back in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal.

It would be interesting to see whether Australia make some changes and rest their two key bowlers, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc, for the inconsequential game. Then again, one wonders whether they would what to risk losing the winning momentum. With David Warner, Aaron Finch, Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja all getting runs, the lack of form from Glenn Maxwell is the only reason to worry for the Aussies.

For South Africa, the World Cup got over long back. Since, they have been just completing the formalities. It was however good to see the likes of Hashim Amla and skipper Faf du Plessis getting among the runs. Although it has been a disappointing tournament for South Africa, their fans will have something to cheer about if they can pull one over Australia. Their supporters deserve some joy.

Squads

Australia: Aaron Finch (c), David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith, Peter Handscomb, Alex Carey (wk), Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson, Pat Cummins, Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Adam Zampa, Nathan Lyon

South Africa: Faf du Plessis (c), Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock (wk), Hashim Amla, Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo, JP Duminy, Dwaine Pretorius, Beuran Hendricks, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Imran Tahir, Tabraiz Shamsi

--By A Cricket Correspondent

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