Heat of Ashes in the middle of desert

Ashes 2021-22, another episode of historic clash between England and Australia is still more than one and half months away, but the heat is on as the archrivals face each other in the T20 format today at Dubai in the ICC T20 World Cup on Saturday.

Both Australia and England have their previous two matches in this tournament so far and the winner of today will be the clear favorite for becoming the winner of group 1 to head towards the semifinals.

Australian pacer Pat Cummins appeared in the pre-match press conference and he said that the whole team is looking forward towards the exciting game, “Most of the team is quite different to the Test side for England, but it’s always huge. We play England a lot. I think the style of play is quite similar. We like to take the game on. They’ve been probably just about the form team the last few years in white ball cricket”, said Cummins.

“Yeah, huge game. We know these guys really well. We know it’s such a big game in the context of making the semifinals, and yeah, always enjoy coming up against England”, he added.

Australian opener David Warner hit a half-century against Sri Lanka in the previous game and Cummins is hopeful that the left-hander will carry on the rhythm, “David is a huge player for us. For the last decade he’s been huge for Australian cricket. I think, as well, opening the batting, that’s where you can really set up the innings. You saw yesterday the way him and Finchy took the game on. It makes those kind of 150 targets either tough to get or you feel like you’re well ahead of the run rate straight away”, said Cummins

England white-ball captain Eoin Morgan will not be the part of upcoming Ashes but he is delighted to face Australia in another World Cup, “Yes, Australia are a very strong side. Obviously coming into the tournament, they probably would be considered joint second favourites, along with us. They’re a side that we know pretty well. We played against them a lot over two or three years. So, looking forward to a really good game”, he said in the pre-match press conference on Friday.

Both Australia and England have two top class leg-spinners, Adam Zampa and Adil Rashid but Morgan thinks that their battle alone will not decide the fate of the game, “I don’t think purely on two players the game stands alone. I think both sides will be strong. We played unbelievably competitive games over the years, and even more recently, 50-over games and T20 games we’ve played, two good strong sides going at it, which is always good entertainment and great to play as well. So I don’t think rests solely on their particular shoulders”, said the England Captain.