A clinical Indian cricket team, donning their orange “away” jersey, will be looking to register a win and secure a place in the semi-finals when they meet an under pressure England in Sunday’s high voltage clash of the ICC Cricket World Cup at Edgbaston in Birmingham.

With 11 points from six matches, India are at the second position in the ICC World Cup 2019 Points Table while England have eight points from seven matches. With an unbeaten record in six matches up till this point, Virat Kohli’s men haven’t yet qualified but a win against England will not only consolidate their position at the top of the table but also knock out hosts England.

England, who were being hyped as one of the top favourties to win the competition, have messed up big time in few of their last matches and only have six points from seven matches to their credit.

Now, the sceptics have started raising doubts whether this English team is indeed the best ODI team in a long time with players like captain Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer in their ranks as they are on the verge of being virtually knocked out of the tournament.

Sunday’s game at Birmingham’s Edgbaston with capacity Indian fans could be fairly disrupting for the hosts who are now under serious pressure to perform or perish.

For India, potentially, it couldn’t have been a better time to square off with the English who could again be agitated by the conditions which are predicted to suit the Indians.

There is expected to be bright sunshine, the prepared pitch is expected to be on the drier side with spinners getting a lot of purchase from the pitch.

Playing two wrist spinners in these conditions alongside Jasprit Bumrah could well spell trouble for the English side which has lost to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Australia in the tournament.

England, however, could take some comfort from the fact that they beat India 2-1 in their last series at home. However, Bumrah was not included in that series and that could well be the X-factor.

Meanwhile, India should not get complacent with their wins in the ongoing World Cup and come up with their best performance to try and outperform England.

The middle order batting still remains a worry and Vijay Shankar’s performances haven’t been that great either. The team and the management haven’t shown any signs of including Rishabh Pant in the Playing XI yet.

The pressure is on England and the opposition against them promises a tough fight, but then, what’s a sporting encounter without a slice of fight and drama?

It’s a treat for cricket fans, this Sunday, when both the teams meet at Edgbaston. The action begins 3 pm (IST) onwards.

Squads:

India: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Vijay Shankar, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja.

England: Eoin Morgan (c), James Vince, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes, Jofra Archer, Jason Roy, Liam Plunkett, Tom Curran, Liam Dawson.