ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is about to get underway and the warm-up games are going on in full flow. The teams are taking their time to get their strongest playing XI settled and get all the wrinkles and doubts ironed out.
The first match of the World Cup on May 30th will be played between the hosts England and South Africa. Each team will be getting 2 warm-up fixtures before the tournament begins and judging by the current makeup of many sides, it’s expected that by analyzing the players’ performances in these matches, their team management will finalize a starting XI for the tournament.
This will also be the time for teams to experiment something new and for the oppositions to observe the game of other teams before the league starts so that they can plan accordingly. It helps to analyze what the strengths and weaknesses of a side are.
Each team will be looking to analyze the conditions and their strengths and weaknesses before they start their respective campaigns.
Let’s take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of each team.
Strengths: England are clearly the favorites to win the World Cup in front of their home fans.
Their home advantage gives them an early edge over their oppositions but their dazzling top order, especially their explosive opening pair is one of their biggest strengths in this tournament. Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow have forged a very strong opening combination which has coasted past opponents with ease.
England have sent many of their oppositions on a leather hunt and have belted scores which weren’t seemingly possible at the start.
England also have great all-rounders who compliment their top order and the wicket-keeper Jos Buttler‘s batting efforts and leadership skills are huge positives as well.
Weaknesses: England, like South Africa, don’t have any apparent weaknesses and their squad mostly has all bases covered. However, their pace bowling line-up lacks a leader or a spearhead to head the attack and though their young guns like Tom Curran and Jofra Archer have done a good job, they sometimes lack the experience to do the right job.