I could not watch either the Pakistan and Zimbabwe game or the England and India game. All I had to go by was the numbers. Sometimes it is helpful because it takes away the emotional bias from the game. Speaking of emotional bias; I am slightly disappointed in the way that the Indian fans reacted to Dhoni. You cannot treat a person who has done more than his fair share of service to Indian cricket like that. Lords is a place where cricket is appreciated no matter who the opponent. They broke that sanctity. Was India right in playing slow so that their margin of defeat would reduce? The honest answer is no. Scoring at a lower rate would actually be detrimental.

Pakistan’s first game was impactful, to say the least but to a great extent utterly unhelpful for me. Where do you draw the line between a good performance against a strong side and an average performance against a weak side? Should Pakistan have scored more than 308 runs against Zimbabwe?

With the new entrants, the standings and performances are now below.

Pakistan has leapt into 3rd place. Scotland has started to slip down the ranking. Jason Roy just managed to edge out Rohit Sharma again. This time the difference was .30% Imam Ul-Haq has thrown his name into the hat too. The English pair of Roy and Baristow have held their spot for nine games. How long will they be able to hold the top spot? Root has once again quietly put himself into contention with his beautiful century. The highlights clip of the match put up by ECB is just over five minutes. Only three balls featured Root’s batting. This article on Joe Root’s batting shows the importance of his role at number three. He may be able to build up points gradually but it will be tough for him to break into the ODI XI considering that Kohli has started coming at three. Morgan has started to come in at four because of the injury to Alex Hales. All this makes the battle of third and fourth an extremely crowded place.

BATSMEN

There have been some significant changes to this table. Buttler has dropped down to fifth place. Kohli has dropped out of the top 10. Root has broken into the top 10. Imam Ul-Haq bursts into the table.

BOWLERS

Quite a few changes over here too. Moeen Ali has lost his first place. Four of the six Pakistani bowlers used in the match against Zimbabwe has made it into the top 10. These should make some interesting changes for the ODI XI

TOTAL SCORE

ODI XI

I have gone back to the three seamers and two spinners option. If anything the relevance of the depth of batting was highlighted in the game The team above bats until 10. Kuldeep Yadav has to go out of the team. Kohli is still not good enough to make the side.

As always I look forward to your comments on the team.