Preview: Australia bid to make short work of improved Canada

By Suneer Chowdhary

 

Four games into the World Cup, Australia’s unbeaten streak in this most hallowed of the ODI tournaments has yet to end. Nor should it when Australia take on Canada at the M Chinnaswamy in Bangalore on March 16 in a Group A encounter.

By Suneer Chowdhary

 

Bengaluru: Mar 16, 2011

 

Four games into the World Cup, Australia’s unbeaten streak in this most hallowed of the ODI tournaments has yet to end. Nor should it when Australia take on Canada at the M Chinnaswamy in Bangalore on March 16 in a Group A encounter.

 

Australia have had a reasonable three weeks without being flashy. None of their wins have been as emphatic as the 200-run plus victories that each of Pakistan and Sri Lanka managed or the twin-ten wicket wins for New Zealand over the minnow nations. And yet, Australia look good to make it nine points from five games without a single loss at the end of this game.

 

The game will also be the second of the three that Australia play in a span of a week, a far cry from the twiddling of thumbs between the New Zealand game and the one against Kenya (the Sri Lanka match being abandoned). Given that the qualification to the quarters was never a concern, it could also augur well for the side to look at a change or two before they go into the games that matter.

 

Michael Hussey’s comeback to the side would have posed a difficult query of the think-tank, the one around who will he replace. For the previous game, it was his brother David, but one also gets the sense that the extra dimension that David provides with the ball could be of Ponting’s use. In that case, those gunning for Cameron White’s head could have their wishes come true, but there is a reasonable chance that Steven Smith could also make way.

 

There is a school of thought that runs along the line of wanting to rest Shaun Tait or Brett Lee given their history of ailments. However, with the games being so spread out Ponting may not want to go down that lane unless absolutely required.

 

Canada, to their credit, seem to have overcome their early issues in the tournament when they went down to the Sri Lankans and Zimbabwe – by 210 and 175 runs respectively.

 

One gets the sense that the demotion of John Davison to the middle-order had a lot to do with their improved batting, as it had to the return to form for the pair of Ashish Bagai and Jimmy Hansra. Both missed chances of getting to a century against New Zealand because of their fitness issues. A solid performance each against Australia will help smoothen the ruffled feathers from those initial losses further.

 

Speaking of Davison, he has announced his retirement from international cricket and would hope for one shot at redemption against the country he has played almost all his cricket in.

 

Interestingly, the two teams have played only once against each other, and it was way back in the 1979 World Cup. Australia had chased down 106 easily on that occasion.

 

Teams:

 

Australia (Probable): Shane Watson, Brad Haddin (wk), Ricky Ponting (c), Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Cameron White, David Hussey, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait, Mitchell Johnson, Jason Krejza.

 

Canada (Probable): Hiral Patel, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Zubin Surkari, Jimmy Hansra, Rizwan Cheema, Ashish Bagai (c&wk), John Davison, Henry Osinde, Khurram Chohan, Harvir Baiwan, Balaji Rao.

 

Umpires: Billy Bowden (New Zealand) and Amish Saheba (India).

 

Time: 14.30 hours local (09.00 GMT)

 

 

(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here: @suneerchowdhary)

 

Pictures © Getty Images

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