What

The 11th ODI of the 2011 ICC World Cup will be played between India and England. The match is a Day/Night affair.

When

February 27, 2011. The game begins at 2:30 pm, IST.

Where

M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. India’s last World Cup outing at this venue was way back in 1996 when they beat arch-rivals Pakistan in a memorable quarter-final game. A few weeks ago India also pulled off a dramatic win against Australia at this venue in a warm-up game.

The Teams

Although both teams put up emphatic batting performances in their respective opening games, it is the bowling that remains a concern for both sides. For India, S Sreesanth gave away as many as 53 runs in his five overs in the game against Bangladesh. The inefficiency of England’s attack against Netherlands was epitomised by James Anderson who went for 72 runs off his ten overs.

India relied on their spinners to beat Australia in the warm-up game - there may be a strong temptation for both sides to play the extra spinner here too. India may opt for Piyush Chawla ahead of R Ashwin to complement Harbhajan Singh. England, on the other hand, may play slow left-arm orthodox spinner Michael Yardy alongside Graeme Swann. But whether they will accommodate Yardy by dropping Ravi Bopara, the man who saw England through in a nervy situation against Netherlands, is a tricky question.

Players to watch out for

Harbhajan Singh is enjoying a good run in ODIs since the start of this year. In the 57 overs he has bowled from the beginning of the ODI series in South Africa in January, he has given away his runs at a relatively miserly rate of 4.32 RPO. Wickets have been hard to come by for Harbhajan but he has afforded Dhoni the comfort of keeping things quiet at one end. Should the Bengaluru wicket favour spin on Sunday, England will have their task cut out against the Indian offspinner.

Kevin Pietersen had a slow start as an opening batsman in the game against Netherlands (39 off 61 balls). Yet it was his solid performance upfront that helped England get past the 100-run mark without the loss of a wicket. For a batsman who enjoys a strike-rate of 86.35, expect Pietersen to bat much faster if he gets going against India.

The squads

India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (c & wk), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Suresh Raina, Ashish Nehra, Piyush Chawla and R Ashwin.

England: Andrew Strauss (c), Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara, Matt Prior, James Anderson, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Ajmal Shahzad, Graeme Swann, James Tredwell, Luke Wright and Michael Yardy.