ODI World Cup digest: Marsh goes big, NZ locked into semis, England finish with a bang
Written by I Dig SportsThe Men's 2023 ODI World Cup is building towards the final on November 19 with the semi-finalists now locked in. Each morning we will round up the latest action and news from the event and bring you the insights from our reporters on the ground.
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Top Story: Marsh's 177* powers Australia to seventh straight win
Australia 307 for 2 (Marsh 177*, Smith 63*, Warner 51) beat Bangladesh 306 for 8 (Hridoy 74, Shanto 45) by eight wickets
Marsh made his highest ODI score and his first century at first drop, thumping 177 off 132 balls with 17 fours and nine sixes in brutal fashion.
Australia had only chased more than 300 once in the last four years, but the rejigged batting line-up finally clicked with Steven Smith making an untroubled, unbeaten 63 at No.4 and sharing in a 175-run stand to guide Australia to their seventh straight win of the tournament.
Match analysis: Marsh owns the No. 3 spot with monstrous hitting
Australia's World Cup campaign has resembled a balls-in-a-maze puzzle. From catches going down in the first two matches, to Steven Smith having to adjust to a new role, to his vertigo, to Glenn Maxwell's concussion on a golf course, Australia just haven't been able to get all the balls in the innermost circle.
One concern must have been how Mitchell Marsh, a big part of their plan to frontload their batting, didn't quite respond immediately to moving down to No. 3 midway in the tournament. Against Bangladesh, in the final league match of the tournament, Marsh ticked that box with an innings full of power and intent that must sound a warning bugle for their opponents in the coming week.
Match report: Stokes and Willey fashion a last hurrah for England
England 337 for 9 (Stokes 84, Root 60, Bairstow 59, Rauf 3-64) beat Pakistan 244 (Salman 51, Willey 3-56) by 93 runs
England's soon-to-be-deposed world champions bade farewell to the 2023 World Cup with a glimpse of their former domineering selves, as they marched to an emphatic 93-run win over Pakistan at Eden Gardens. The result means that Babar Azam's men are officially out of semi-final contention.
Must Watch: Steve Harmison on Jos Buttler
News headlines
Match preview
India vs Netherlands, Bengaluru (2pm IST; 8.30am GMT; 7.30pm AEDT)
They've been occasionally tested, but otherwise, India's World Cup run has been nothing short of magical. Now on the day of the auspicious Indian festival of Diwali, they have a chance to gift their fans another dose of entertainment, and even though we know that anything can happen in sport, a defeat for the hosts is extremely unlikely.
That's because India have been absolutely dominant during their 8-0 run at this World Cup. Coming into their final league game, they face the least-fancied team of the tournament, Netherlands, even if they have performed better than expected. With a semi-final against New Zealand on Wednesday their next big game, Sunday also offers India a chance to rest key personnel should there be a need for it.
Team news
India (probable) 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul, 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Kuldeep Yadav / R Ashwin, 9 Jasprit Bumrah / Prasidh Krishna, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Mohammed Siraj
Netherlands (probable) 1 Max O'Dowd / Vikramjit Singh, 2 Wesley Barresi, 3 Colin Ackermann, 4 Sybrand Engelbrecht, 5 Scott Edwards (capt), 6 Bas de Leede, 7 Teja Nidamanuru, 8 Logan van Beek, 9 Roelof van der Merwe, 10 Aryan Dutt, 11 Paul van Meekeren