England v Afghanistan: Cricket World Cup warmup – live!

Good news for England as Morgan returns to a side of 12 players, as plans for The Hundred are tested out on the public.

England: Roy, Bairstow, Root, Morgan, Stokes, Buttler, Moeen, Vince, Woakes, T Curran, Rashid, Archer

Abhijato Sensarma provides an update: “A correction to my earlier email: these two sides have met before, but it was a match in the 2015 World Cup which couldn’t be completed because of the bad weather, robbing them of a victory they deserved to end their disastrous campaign. If someone had told me then that four years down the line England would be the best team of the world and leading an ODI revolution, I would have called it a very bold prediction indeed!”

Obviously, if you want to catch me out if with erroneous facts, you can get in touch to ask me whatever you want via the details above.

Our first contribution of the day comes from Abhijato Sensarma, who is not here to please the home supporters, he says: “I think the English players would be cautious enough to prevent any physical injuries. When it comes to possible injury to their self-confidence, however, it’s a different case against Afghanistan.

“This is the first time these two international sides are meeting. Considering England’s tendency to fail to go off against quality spinners and Afghanistan’s tendency to be at their best against the best, the proverbial underdogs might send out an iconic warning today!”

Certainly a bold prediction.

There were plenty of England fans wandering through King’s Cross this morning, heading down to The Oval ahead of their feast of cricket. It’s quite overcast in London but the sun is creeping through.

England fast bowler Mark Wood has been passed fit for the World Cup opener against South Africa. The seamer was withdrawn from the warmup match against Australia on Saturday due to complaint in his left ankle. Wood underwent a scan at hospital which has cleared him to feature on Thursday but he will not play against Afghanistan.

After Saturday’s defeat to Australia England will be aiming to go into the World Cup on a high. There were a few issues against the Aussies, mainly people getting injured so Trevor Bayliss will want to ensure no more niggles or split fingers in today’s outing.

This England side are not used to losing and a further defeat against Afghanistan would be a pretty huge blow to a side expecting to make it all the way to the final in a home tournament. Obviously, these games where 15-a-side can be selected and Ronnie Irani or a mascot are allowed to field when the latest players trips over the rope, mean very little in the grand scheme of things but momentum is never a bad concept to have.

Afghanistan have a decent bowling attack, it has to be said, but their batting is not particularly promising. Rashid Khan is a serious talent and it’s always good to watch him test himself agains the best in the business but they really should not trouble this England side.

The forecast is very promising so we should have a full day’s cricket.

Let’s play ball! From 10.30am BST.