ICC World Cup 2019 – Match 10: AUS vs WI – Australia Predicted Playing XI

The Australian pacers and Adam Zampa were all over the Afghanistan batsmen in the team’s opening encounter of the tournament. The Kangaroos got off the blocks in a grand fashion but the opposition was a relatively weak one. Now, Australia will head into their second encounter of the tournament and take on the Windies in Nottingham.

The Caribbean team is quite unpredictable. But in the last few months, they’ve played some exceptional cricket and bolstered their resources by picking some of the players who were out of the reckoning all this while. Australia will look the keep the winning combination going. But they might even ponder upon making a few changes to the side keeping the opposition in mind.

Here is the Predicted Playing XI for Australia:

Openers (Aaron Finch (c), David Warner)

Aaron Finch is leading the team from the front, both with the captaincy and his batting. The opener started off the tournament with a fiery 49-ball 66 and played some great attacking cricket. He enjoys the pace coming onto the bat and it would be a delight for him facing the Windies quicks.

At the other end will be David Warner who played a match-winning unbeaten 89 in the last game. The left-hander is also extremely hungry for runs. While the duo might be in good form, they will be tested by the short balls. Both of them aren’t completely comfortable against the bouncers and it will be a great challenge for them.

Middle Order (Usman Khawaja, Steven Smith, Alex Carey (wk))

Usman Khawaja, who has been just as excellent in the last few months, will have to sacrifice his spot and bat at number three. He will be the anchor and rotates the strike well. He couldn’t make it big against Afghanistan and will look to play better in the next match. Steve Smith will come in at four. He is definitely in good touch and scored a century in the warm-up match.

He didn’t have much to do in the game against the Afghans and tried to spend some in the middle. However, it was disappointing to see him not finishing the match. He will have a bigger role to play against the Windies and will surely eye a big score. Alex Carey will bat at seven and is expected to score some quick runs towards the end of the innings if he gets to bat.

All Rounders (Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis)

Glenn Maxwell has done extremely well with the bat in the last five outings scoring 262 runs at an average of 65.50. While he will be critical with the bat, his role with the ball could be more important during the upcoming game. The opposition features a lot of left-handers and he could be the only off-spinner in the team. Thus, he might even get to bowl all of his 10 overs.

Marcus Stonis will be the other all-rounder in this line-up. While he didn’t get a chance to bat, Stoinis picked up two crucial wickets at an important stage of the game against Afghanistan. His variations could come handy to test the Windies batsmen and he will look to make the most of the longer parts of the ground.

Bowlers (Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa)

Nathan Coulter-Nile has had slightly turbulent times of late. He failed to get amongst the wickets in the last match. Should there be some swing on offer, the pace troika consisting of him, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc will look the exploit the technical deficits of the opposition batsmen. Pat Cummins has been one of the best performers with the ball while Mitchell Starc is slowly catching up.

Picking the spinner will be a huge decision for Australia. Adam Zampa picked up three wickets in the last game and didn’t do much wrong. But the Windies team has got a lot of left-handers in their ranks. Thus, Nathan Lyon is a possible option they might look to explore. There is a possibility that the rest Coulter-Nile and then play both the frontline spinners.