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• Reece Topley ‘undercooked’ as England prepare for World Cup opener

  Reece Topley is ready to play the long game as he looks to put his World Cup woes behind him, but the seamer admits England’s interrupted preparations have left him “undercooked”.

  England get their title defence under way in Ahmedabad on Thursday when they face New Zealand in a replay of the 2019 final, but their lead up to that curtain-raiser has been less than straightforward.

  A 38-hour trip to their warm-up base in Guwahati was branded “utter chaos” by Jonny Bairstow, before their first practice match against India was rained off without a ball being bowled.

  They were able to get some game time in against Bangladesh on Monday, but their four-wicket win came in a game reduced to 37 overs and none of their bowlers delivered more than five.

  That is a light load to take into a flagship fixture, but for Topley simply arriving at the Narendra Modi Stadium fit for duty would be a success of sorts.

  Little over a year ago, just days before the start of the T20 World Cup in Australia, he tripped on a boundary sponge and was ruled out of a tournament England went on to win.

  “If anything I would say that I’m pretty undercooked, but going into a long tournament I don’t necessarily think that is the worst thing,” the left-armer said after tuning up with a three-wicket haul.

  “I feel like I’m just about to come into my stride, hopefully. It’s not about tearing in at the warm up game and impressing the right people, it is about delivering in the nine group games.

  “That last group game is still pretty far away so I feel like I’m where I should be, but there is still some work to be done for sure.

  “After missing the first game due to the weather it was good for us to be able to get out on the field and for people to get what they needed from the experience which is a positive outcome.

  “We’ve all been doing our training after having a couple of weeks without matches so it is nice to get back in the groove with playing in the middle and it helps to assess what you still need to work on before that first proper match.”

  Topley, who has lost long spells of his career due to injury problems, has spoken openly about the trauma of his late withdrawal from last year’s trophy-winning side and has been doing everything in his power to avoid a repeat. Mercifully, his luck has held so far.

  “I’ve been steering clear of any mishaps and playing it quite safe, and I’ll continue to do so ahead of the first game,” he said.

  “Obviously I don’t want any repeat of what was so gutting last year in Brisbane at the T20 World Cup. It was a tough period to go through and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone because these are the moments and the events that you dream of being a part of and playing your part in.

  “Hopefully I can play my part this year and make up for lost time if anything and make a contribution to England going all the way again. I’m looking forward to getting some game time, just as I was anticipating last year, and this time hopefully I can help the team retain the trophy.”

  There is stiff competition for places among the England bowling ranks, with Topley joining Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, David Willey, Sam Curran and Gus Atkinson in a well-stocked pace attack.

  England expect it to be a group effort in India, with a draining schedule that involves new venues and internal flights for every group match, but everyone has their eye on the opening match as the first signs of a pecking order emerge.

  “I think everyone is fighting for a spot in that final XI. You’ve just got to do all you can to put your case forward to feature in that side,” Topley explained.

  “I felt like I gave a good account of myself in the run out. Whatever 11 they end up picking, the whole squad is right behind each other, it is going to take a squad effort to be successful out here and the side that goes out in each match will continue to live up to the exciting way we play our cricket.”

• Magnificent Matthews says record chase gives Windies confidence boost ahead of third T20I

  Hayley Matthews continued her spectacular form this year with a brilliant knock to help her West Indies Women pull off a world record run chase against world champions, Australia, to tie up their three-match T20I series at the North Sydney Oval on Monday.

  Matthews smashed a 64-ball 132 including 20 fours and five sixes to help the West Indies successfully chase their target of 213.

  In a post-match interview, the all-rounder said this win will give her team a much-needed confidence boost ahead of the third and final T20I on Thursday.

  “A win like this at a time like this definitely means a whole lot to the team. Obviously, we’ve come down here with a lot of young girls in a learning, growing squad and to get a win like this against the best team in the world the way that we were able to do it is really going to boost our confidence and give us a lot of belief within the team,” Matthews said.

  The Barbadian shared in a spectacular 174-run second wicket partnership with former captain Stafanie Taylor who made 59 off 41 balls including 11 fours. Matthews heaped praise on the Jamaican for helping take the pressure off her at the crease.

  “I think when we needed 100 runs from about 50 balls, we looked at each other in the middle and said we could really get this if we keep going with the momentum. Kudos to the way she batted as well, getting boundaries on a regular basis and taking a lot of pressure off me so I’m really happy to have shared that partnership with a legend like her,” she said.

  Matthews, so far, has made 213 runs in two innings in the series after her unbeaten 99 in the first T20I. She was asked what has made her so productive this year.

  “Just working hard. I’ve played a lot of T20 and franchise cricket around the world and I’ve had the opportunity, at such a young age, to learn a lot about my game and the biggest thing for me has been my understanding and my technical work has been working really well,” she said.

  Matthews also insisted that there is no pressure on her side ahead of the decisive third T20I.

  “When we came to Australia we had nothing to lose at all. After the first game, what we did individually was look within ourselves and saw what we could’ve done better. That’s exactly what we’re going to do ahead of the next game. Yes, we won but we have so many areas we can improve in and so much learning that could take place as well,” she said.

  The third T20I begins at 3:05 am Jamaica time and can be seen live on SportsMax.

• A look at changing nature of international calendar ahead of Cricket World Cup

  The World Cup gets under way on Thursday with the status of one-day internationals dwindling as Twenty20 continues to take precedence.

  England have played fewer ODIs heading into this tournament than for any World Cup in almost 30 years and here, the PA news agency looks at the changing nature of the international calendar.

  Has the ODI bubble burst?

  The first two World Cups, in 1975 and 1979, were played with ODIs barely yet an established format – the first fixture took place on January 5, 1971 but only 53 were played all decade outside of those tournaments.

  Post-1979, England’s 42 ODIs in the four-year cycle leading up to this World Cup marks their third-lowest total and their fewest since the 1996 tournament, when they had played only 38 in between World Cups. They played 40 leading up to 1983.

  The picture is similar for the other leading ODI nations, with India’s 66 ODIs also their third-lowest in a World Cup cycle in that time and exceeding the four-year periods up to 1996 (63) and 1983 (27).

  Australia’s 44 is their lowest excluding the 1970s tournaments, with 64 leading up to the 1983 World Cup and at least 75 on every other occasion since.

  The four-year cycle was briefly broken by a switch to even-numbered years in the 1990s. There were five years between the tournaments in 1987 and 1992 and only three up to 1999, when the regular pattern was re-established.

  Twenty20 vision

  The decline of the 50-over game has been brought about by the rise of the shortest format and this cycle is the first time T20 internationals have made up the largest share of England’s fixtures.

  With 68 games, excluding those abandoned without a ball bowled, T20 accounts for 40.8 per cent of England’s games since the 50-over World Cup final against New Zealand on July 14, 2019.

  They have played 58 Tests in that time (34.3 per cent) and only 42 ODIs (24.9 per cent), the lowest share of England’s fixtures for the latter format since the years leading up to the 1975 World Cup when they played 50 Tests to 17 ODIs.

  T20 was only introduced for the first time in 2005 and made up just 2.8 per cent of England’s games between the 2003 and 2007 World Cups. That had jumped to 20.4 per cent in the next cycle and has doubled in the years since.

  Feeling the squeeze

  With all three formats battling for their place in the calendar, something has to give.

  Ben Stokes, the hero of England’s 2019 World Cup win, shockingly announced his retirement from the format last year with a warning that “there is too much cricket rammed in for people to play all three formats now”.

  He has returned for this World Cup – but as a specialist batter, with knee problems inhibiting his bowling – but his prolonged absence hinted at a wider trend.

  Eight of the 2019 World Cup-winning squad also appear in the group this time around – captain Jos Buttler, Stokes, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood.

  They had played an average of 74.1 per cent of England’s games between the 2015 and 2019 tournaments, with Rashid at 94.3 per cent, but none have even reached that average mark in the years since.

  Moeen’s 73.8 per cent is the leading figure, with the average down to 48.8. Wood has played just 19 per cent, below even Stokes’ 31 per cent.