ICC World Cup 2019: Match 1, England vs South Africa – Dream11 Fantasy Team based on Stats

The much-awaited World Cup 2019 is here! To start the competition, England and South Africa who are yet to lay their hands on the coveted trophy, will lock horns at the Kennington Oval in London. Both the sides had decent outings in the warm-up clashes. While the hosts lost to Australia before thumping Afghanistan, the Proteas brushed aside Sri Lanka. South Africa’s second warm-up game against the Windies was washed out.

As far as the injuries are concerned, Dale Steyn is ruled out of the contest while the likes of Mark Wood and Eoin Morgan are fit to play. While the England skipper will be back at the helm after missing out in the warm-up matches, Wood is likely to miss from being the part of the playing XI. As for South Africa, Faf du Plessis might prefer either of Dwaine Pretorius or Chris Morris with Steyn being unavailable.

Here we bring you the Dream11 Fantasy team based on the stats of the players:

Wicketkeepers:

Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler and Quinton de Kock are the three wicket-keepers available to pick for this game. It will be a huge risk to leave any of these players out looking at their stats in the last five innings. Picking these three consumes 29.5 credits but the trio is worth of it and the rest of the fantasy team could be built around them now.

Final picks: Jos Buttler (10 cr), Jonny Bairstow (9.5 cr), Quinton de Kock (10 cr)

Batsmen:

All the players in this category are top class. But the wicket-keepers have already consumed a lot of credits which leads to only one of Faf du Plessis, Eoin Morgan and Joe Root could be picked. Root’s stats in the last five ODIs are not so good and Morgan can be ignored as Buttler and Bairstow are already picked. Jason Roy is in great form and is a must pick going by the stats while Rassie van der Dussen is an economical pick in this category.

Final Picks: Faf du Plessis (10 cr), Rassie van der Dussen (8 cr), Jason Roy (9 cr)

All-Rounders:

Going purely by the stats, only Andile Phehlukwayo looks the in-form player in this category. The likes of Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali are not performing that well while Dwaine Pretorius is a rookie and doesn’t have great stats to boast of as well. JP Duminy too is coming off an injury and hasn’t played much cricket over the last few months. Phehlukwayo is available only with 8 credits and is a great pick.

Final Picks: Andile Phehlukwayo (8 cr)

Bowlers:

Coming into this category, we still have 35.5 credits left and can afford picking top bowlers in the action. Imran Tahir and Kagiso Rabada are two of South Africa’s top wicket-takers at the moment. They have picked nine wickets each in last five ODI innings and could prove to be lethal in this game as well. For England, Chris Woakes is a genuine wicket-taker with the new ball while Liam Plunkett also strikes in the middle overs at times.

The likes of Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid and Lungi Ngidi could be ignored as they haven’t picked as many wickets as the aforementioned players.

Final Picks: Kagiso Rabada (9.5 cr), Imran Tahir (9 cr), Liam Plunkett (8 cr), Chris Woakes (9 cr)