Hello and welcome to Telegraph Sport’s live over-by-over coverage of England v Namibia in Antigua. If all goes to plan, England’s place in the Super 8 will be confirmed around 5am tomorrow morning. But it depends on three things:
- Weather in Antigua and St. Lucia
- England beat Namibia tonight
- Australia beat Scotland in the early hours.
At least there is no need to worry about net run rate. England’s fast win over Oman solved that issue. So now it’s just a matter of whether England can tie Scotland on five points. There’s no guarantee of that, because it’s Heavy rain in Antigua As I write this the weather forecast is improving for the rest of the day but will be a worry for England.
“You just have to hope they can play a bit better and win,” Mark Wood said. “Once you get to the next stage, any team can go from there. I’m absolutely confident they’ll play their hardest. That’s the Australian way. They’ll play hard and they’ll play fair and they’ll want to win.”
Wood was hesitant to criticise Josh Hazlewood for suggesting Australia could engineer an England defeat. “To be honest, I thought it was more a matter of respect,” he said. “He said England have done well against Australia recently and they consider us a big threat. I had no problem with that. This is all an England v Australia side.”
For now, the focus is on England vs Namibia. 6pm BSTIt’s 1pm in Antigua.