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Cricket World Cup diary: India show how dangerous they are for NZ with win over Australia

1 NEWS Sport reporter Guy Heveldt discusses the latest from the Cricket World Cup.

Cricket World Cup Diary Day 11

The Blue Army is charging. Two games in and India look relentless. Batting, bowling, fielding, whatever it is they look in control and dominant.

Cruise control

The 36-run win over Australia overnight was a cakewalk.

Their 352 for five had an eerie feel of calm composure about it, screaming that if they really wanted to, or felt they needed to, they could’ve added another 50 runs to that. Dhawan and Kohli looked untroubled and impenetrable, making Australia look weak.

It’s a dangerous sign for everyone else, even hosts England. And especially the Black Caps. And especially when you consider where the two will meet on Thursday night (NZT).

Black Caps face challenges everywhere

Trent Bridge is flat, a road, according to those who have played there.

The County club that plays there, Nottinghamshire, reportedly prides itself on being a high-scoring domestic team, while Trent Bridge is considered the highest-scoring ground in England.

So, a far cry then from the conditions that suited New Zealand’s seamers in their impressive warm-up win at The Oval just a couple of weeks ago.

The Black Caps can win the game, they’ll just need quite a lot, possibly everything to go their way. If they do though, it sets them up superbly for the semi-finals. So there couldn’t be more at stake come Thursday night.

What’s going on with the bails?!

Let’s hope this weird issue with the bails is fixed by then. The phenomenon of the World Cup.

To explain, four times already this tournament (14 matches) the stumps have been hit, only for the bails not to fall off.

Usually it’s an incredibly rare occurrence, one that leaves players, commentators and fans stunned. This time we’re all stunned because it’s happening so much.

Who would’ve thought that a 10.95cm piece of wood, perching atop other pieces of wood would be one of the biggest talking points of this tournament?!

The theories vary from too much weight in them since they’ve added in the flashing lights (for when they do actually fall off!), superglue and the ridges in the stumps being too deep.

Whatever it is, it does need to be fixed. Bat is too often dominating ball already in cricket and this only heightens that divide.

It could well be a crazy anomaly that, in a quite bizarre set of circumstances just keeps happening. That seems unlikely though and, if the ICC wants to keep this World Cup rolling along perfectly, as it has to date, it should look deeper into this issue.

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