zimcricketnews.com

The final four warm-up matches were played yesterday, with the top 8 seeds featuring this time around, and from a Zimbabwean point of view there was good news and bad. First up, the bad: Pakistan found some form (or South Africa lost theirs, depending how you view it) and took some revenge for their recent series drubbing with a convincing 7-wicket win over the Proteas. Personally, I'm hoping that was more down to a slump by the South Africans. On the good front, West Indies were hammered by India in a match that lasted less than 44 overs total - the hosts collapsed to 85 all out in a dismal performance, with India knocking the required runs inside 19 overs. More of the same form from the West Indies in the group stage, please...

In the other matches, Australia took revenge for their CB Series defeat by beating England. Duncan Fletcher had obviously seen that coming and had made comments before the match that England weren't looking for the win, but even so this still wouldn't have been quite the warm-up England would have wanted. New Zealand recovered from their loss to Bangladesh by seeing off Sri Lanka in a close-fought match in the final of the day's pairings.
Pakistan beat South Africa by 7 wickets
Australia beat England by 5 wickets
New Zealand beat Sri Lanka by 18 runs
India beat West Indies by 9 wickets

That's the end of the warm-up matches - the next matches will actually count for something. The next match is the opener on March 13th, and it's a Group D clash between West Indies and Pakistan. See you then...