1st over: New Zealand 1-0 (Conway 0, Ravindra 0) Afridi starts with a wide but he’s right on it after that. A series of excellent deliveries – straight, swinging away a touch – are defended by Conway.
New Zealand v Pakistan: Cricket World Cup 2023 – live
Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra walk out to bat. Shaheen Shah Afridi has the ball.
The pitch
This is the ground on which England collapsed against Sri Lanka. Matthew Hayden, wearing a quite sensational pink fedora, expects a slow, awkward pitch, with a par score of around 270. The two teams have read it differently, with Pakistan bringing in an extra quick bowler and New Zealand recalling the legspinner Ish Sodhi.
New Zealand bring in Kane Williamson, Mark Chapman and Ish Sodhi for Will Young, Jimmy Neesham and the injured Matt Henry. Pakistan prefer Hasan Ali to the legspinner Usama Mir.
New Zealand Conway, Ravindra, Williamson (c), Mitchell, Latham (wk), Phillips, Chapman, Santner, Sodhi, Southee, Boult.
Pakistan Fakhar Zaman, Abdullah Shafique, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Agha Salman, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Wasim, Haris Rauf.
Babar Azam says there’s a bit of moisture in the pitch, hence the decision to field. They’ve also picked the extra seamer in Hasan Ali.
New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, who returns from injury, says “it’s a slightly different-looking surface to what we expect here”.
A bit of news from elsewhere: Indian allrounder Hardik Pandya, who injured his ankle against Bangladesh, has been replaced in the squad by the seam bowler Prasidh Krishna. That may be significant come the knockout stages as Pandya is essentially irreplaceable.
Hello. This World Cup has had so many tomorrows that England are still technically in the competition. But – at last - today is all about today. Australia play England later; for once, however, that game isn’t the most important fixture in the calendar. New Zealand and Pakistan meet in Bengaluru knowing that the semi-finals ain’t big enough for the both of them. (It might not be big enough for either of them, but let’s not get into that just yet.)
While Pedantic mathematicians will disagree, realistically Pakistan will be out if they lose today. But if they win they will join New Zealand on eight points, with powerful memories of 1992 to add, and it will all come down to the last round of fixtures. Pakistan play after New Zealand so would know, in theory, what they needed to do. (If today’s match is rained off, which is a possibility given the forecast for the second innings, they’ll still have one fingernail gripping the edge of the precipice.)
A New Zealand win, as well as ending a run of three straight defeats, would keep their fate securely in their own hands. Even a narrow defeat wouldn’t be the end of the world, given their superior net run-rate. But another heavy defeat is unthinkable.
The situation is too complicated, and England aren’t out of this thing yet Afghanistan are playing too well, to say this is a de facto quarter-final. But it is the most important game of the tournament so far.
The match begins at 5am GMT, 10.30am in Bengaluru.