Moeen ton gives England opening win
Moeen Ali coupled a rapid hundred with two wickets to help England beat Scotland by 119 runs in Christchurch and gain a much-needed first win
Moeen Ali coupled a rapid hundred with two wickets to help England beat Scotland by 119 runs in Christchurch and gain a much-needed first win
Scorer: Chandan Duorah | Commentator: Vishal Dikshit
6.14pm England will not be given extra credit for beating Scotland but this win of 119 runs will do their confidence some good after the two thrashings. They could have scored much more than 303, but made sure their bowlers didn't allow many scoring opportunities to the Scotland batsmen. Finn will also be happy to pick up 3 for 26. Scotland did well in phases. They curbed England to just over 300, started will in the chase but could not sustain their performance.
Moeen Ali is the Man of the Match: Nice to spend time in the middle and get through first 10 overs. It was not an easy pitch to start, takes a bit of time to play some shots but we did well to score over 300. At one time I thought of maybe 330-340 but it was not easy to pitch and at least we got 300. Nice to get a bit of form before the next match and hopefully I can continue it. Thank god for winning the game and hopefully we can win the next three in a row. Don't think I bowled that well today, haven't bowled for a couple of weeks in matches now.
Preston Mommsen: We won the toss and we we would have liked a few more early wickets. We pulled them back nicely but didn't get going in the chase, we didn't quite hit our areas but credit to our bowlers for bouncing back in the death. We thought we were in with a shot and needed a partnership upfront but didn't get one that we needed. Joshy did great work at the death and Kyle batted beautifully there. NZ game was a tough first World Cup match for a lot of boys. Today some learnings for us and hopefully we'll be better when we come up against Afghanistan. This is a huge step up from county to international - more pressure, huge crowds, there's more at stake.
Eoin Morgan: Delighted with today's performance, today we played not within ourselves but expressed ourselves little bit, which was good to see. Two openers were exceptional and ideally we would have liked to kick on without stuttering. But we recovered really well to a good score. We are really flexible in our batting, today was all about a win. As we get close to Powerplay we are flexible. Nice to get some runs under my bat. I thought our bowlers were really good, standout from Finn and Broady got rewarded. Moeen was brilliant chipping in with his 10 overs. It's great to have Anderson and Broad back at full strength, their combination works and that's a massive plus for us.
That's all we have from this match, I'm afraid. England will now face Sri Lanka after a week in Wellington. Scotland, meanwhile, face Afghanistan in Dunedin on the 26th. Just in case you are watching the entire World Cup, we have West Indies v Zimbabwe tomorrow from Canberra. Join us again for that, until then it's goodbye and good luck from Vishal and Devashish. Ciao!
RM Haq c Ballance b Woakes 15 (42m 24b 3x4 0x6) SR: 62.5
Sree: "I would give bonus point to Scots if they can survive 50 overs.."
AC Evans c †Buttler b Anderson 9 (15m 15b 2x4 0x6) SR: 60
It might have been a bit of a no-contest but the fun fans and excellent weather made up for it
They won the game. They found some form. If you're judging England on the scoreboard, it was above par, but still well below par
While he stroked his way to a fluent and majestic hundred, his team-mates struggled to find the boundaries, something that is very likely to cost England in their upcoming games
What this game showed us is that Scotland have the talent to compete with England. They were not blown away; they were defeated by their lack of exposure to the circumstances
England's captain Eoin Morgan expressed support for Ian Bell's understated role in a Woirld Cup record opening stand with Moeen Ali as England saw off Scotland comfortably in Christchurch