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Top Story: de Kock, Klaasen lead South Africa’s demolition of Bangladesh

South Africa continue to bludgeon all before their path when they bat first, and it doesn’t seem to matter who’s in the way. This time, it was Bangladesh who were the unfortunate victims, with South Africa putting them to the sword in a 149-run demolition.

It was led by an enormous contribution from Quinton de Kock, whose 140-ball 174 powered South Africa to 382. At the death, to help him along, he had Heinrich Klaasen, who smashed 90 off 49 balls as South Africa racked up 144 in the final 10 overs. Bangladesh were never in the chase in response and, as with every other game of South Africa’s in this tournament, all five bowlers chipped in with wickets.

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Match analysis: Making sense of South Africa’s sixy start to the World Cup

The top three totals at this World Cup belong to South Africa, including the only one over 400, which is also the highest tournament total ever. Six of the 19 hundreds scored so far come from South Africans. The leading run-scorer so far – Quinton de Kock – is South African and he also has the best individual score to date.

In his 150th ODI, de Kock slammed 174 – 14 short of the South African record still held by Gary Kirsten – and 26 shy of a double-ton, which batting coach JP Duminy confirmed is on de Kock’s wishlist as something to achieve before he quits the format after this World Cup. That de Kock appears to have saved his best for last has been obvious since the Sri Lanka game in Delhi but to suggest he is simply throwing his bat in his last few innings and hoping for the best would be doing a disservice to a player in scintillating touch.

Click here to read the full analysis from Firdose Moonda in Mumbai

Must Watch: Shane Bond and Cheteshwar Pujara on South Africa’s success

News headlines

Allrounder Angelo Mathews has replaced fast bowler Matheesha Pathirana in Sri Lanka’s World Cup squad.

Pakistan’s captain Babar Azam did not hold back on the criticism of his players following the team’s eight-wicket loss to Afghanistan.

Match preview

There has long been a connection between Netherlands and Australian cricket. It is perhaps not quite as strong as South Africa’s connection to the current Dutch team but their captain, Scott Edwards, is an Australian citizen having grown up in Melbourne and played second XI cricket for Victoria. He has introduced a Netherlands team song that is a shameless rebrand of the song of his favourite Australian Football League club Richmond. From Edwards to former Dutch coach Ryan Campbell, to Tom Cooper, Timm van der Gugten, Michael Swart and Dirk Nannes, among others, plenty of Australian domestic players have had an impact on Netherlands cricket.

But there will be no love lost in Delhi on Wednesday. Netherlands are gunning for another big scalp, having already taken down South Africa and potentially missed an opportunity against Sri Lanka. Australia are looking to continue their momentum. They will not be taking the Netherlands lightly, but they would love a statement win having been tested at times against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Full preview

Australia (probable) 1 David Warner, 2 Travis Head, 3 Mitchell Marsh, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Josh Inglis (wk), 6 Glenn Maxwell, 7 Marcus Stoinis, 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Josh Hazlewood, 11 Adam Zampa

Netherlands (probable) 1 Vikramjit Singh, 2 Max O’Dowd, 3 Colin Ackermann, 4 Bas de Leede, 5 Teja Nidamanuru, 6 Scott Edwards (capt & wk), 7 Sybrand Engelbrecht, 8 Roelof van der Merwe, 9 Logan van Beek, 10 Aryan Dutt, 11 Paul van Meekeren

Feature: Dear World Cup, please be more exciting, please?

Roughly halfway through the league stage, this World Cup has had three big upsets – Afghanistan’s stunning of Pakistan on Monday the latest. Ordinarily this would seem like plenty, but in this World Cup, it seems like not nearly enough.

None of the finishes have gone into the last over, and iconic moments have been in short supply (like Jonty Rhodes supermanning the stumps, say, or Ben Stokes’ backwards salmon-leap to take that outfield catch). Like the Death Star closing in on Alderaan, India’s storming towards the knockouts is also going almost exactly as the powers had intended.

Read the full piece from Andrew Fidel Fernando in Delhi