Before the World Cup, there were talks about high-scoring fixtures, and few even suggested that scores could approach 500. However, barring the one England vs Afghanistan match, the surfaces on offer have allowed bowlers to have a say and the contrasting conditions have not made it easy for batsmen to plant their front foot and hit through the line. Also, toss has become a critical factor in all the games as teams have generally batted first after the winning the toss, a strategy which has resulted in more wins.

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The venue for the semi-final clash between India and New Zealand is Old Trafford, a venue which has been a bat-first venue. The team doing so has won all the recent five matches played at the venue. The average first-innings score in those matches has been 323 for 6, which means it is a pitch assisting stroke-makers. Also, a very pertinent point is that pace (62 wickets at 28.9, economy of 5.7) has been more of a threat than spin (12 wickets at 89.4, economy of 6.1) in those five games.

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Now, if only these factors could solve the problem for the captains - cloudy skies are expected with forecast of intermittent showers right through the day, and the captain will have to take into account all these factors before arriving at his decision at the toss.

The pitches which will be used for the smi-finals as well the final will be fresh surfaces which are expected to be true for the entire 100 overs. However, muggy overhead conditions might have the final say when the captain takes a decision at the toss.

First Published: Jul 09, 2019 12:52 IST