da bet sport： England began the defense of their 1998 World Cup title with aresounding eight-wicket victory against a disappointing Americasside
da bwin： Charlie Austin12-Jan-2000England began the defense of their 1998 World Cup title with aresounding eight-wicket victory against a disappointing Americasside. After the late start the English dismissed the Americas fora paltry 105 and then scored the required runs in just 19.1overs.The highlight of the day was the batting of positive batting ofthe English openers, Ian Bell and Michael Carberry. Right fromthe start of the innings they were willing to punish anythingloose. Ian Bell in particular was impressive. One felt whilstwatching him that you were catching a glimpse of the future. Hisbatting style is simplicity personified. Like all good batsmen hemakes batting look easy, with precise shot selection and crisphitting, the bat appearing to be a mere extension of his arms.His dismissal, out stumped for 41, came as a shock for theAmerican bowlers had looked incapable of deceiving him.The England coach was clearly pleased with the batting of theopeners when asked afterwards about England’s performance.”The highlight of the day was the batting of Ian Bell, playingthe way that we know he can play, by taking the attack to thebowlers and playing some inspiring shots. I’m pretty happy withwhere we are at the moment, but we have to iron out a fewproblems with the bowlers, as we gave away far too many extras.”He didn’t waste any time in doing this and had the players outpractising in the middle straight after the match finished. Themove was sensible in due of the fact that England gave away 25extras and the bowlers appeared short of full match rhythm.Understandable in a tour that has been plagued by poor weather.The Americas, who include players from Bermuda, the USA, Canadaand Argentina, were outplayed right from the first over, whenWarren bowled C. Foggo off a no ball. They didn’t have to waitlong though for their first wicket of the tournament as L. Minorwas bowled off his inside edge off Murtagh’s second ball. Murtaghhad the best figures of the day, 4-33, despite a tendency to overpitch in his early overs.A.Bagai, the Americas best batsmen, briefly threatened to play abig innings. In one over off Murtagh he hit three boundariesthrough the legside, two of which were textbook on drives.Unfortunately for him Murtagh gained his revenge when theathletic Cardus took a fine diving catch, low to his right in thecovers. When Z. Surkari was out caught by Bridge off the bowlingPhillips, any chance of a reasonable Americas score hadevaporated.When it was the Americas time to field the bowlers were forced toattack from the word go. This resulted in a number of poordeliveries that were confidently put away by the Englishmen.Unfortunately for the bowlers their batsmen had squandered achance to bat first on what was a pretty good wicket.Certainly the Americas coach, Oumadat Dipchand was disappointedby the performance of his batsmen. “We didn’t apply ourselves.Its not that we can’t play at this level its just that we threwthe wickets away stupidly. We hope that in the next game thebatsmen will apply themselves and work to the game plan.” Theirnext game will be against Zimbabwe who lost to the West Indies.England faces the West Indies on Thursday and will have to uptheir game significantly if they are to win this crucial match.The West Indies have some quick bowlers in their side and havebeen scoring runs in Sri Lanka so far.
