New Zealand v Australia: Cricket World Cup 2019 – live!

1st over: Australia 0-0 (Warner 0, Finch 0) And we are away! Trent Boult to start things off to Warner. Boult is bowling left-arm swing from the Pavilion End, and he’s swinging it immediately. Warner is content to cover up and wait. Once punch nearly squeaks through cover, but is well fielded. One ball from Boult holds its line and takes a thick edge on the bounce to gully. A maiden to start.

Since you might all be sick of me before long, I’ll start with a very kind email from Brian Withington. “Just finished luxuriating in your sublime description of the Mitchell Starc dismissal of Ben Stokes, he gushed. I particularly enjoyed your metaphor of the relaxed wrist ‘opening a warm bread roll’, which brought back fond memories of the Duckworth-Lewis celebration of Shane Warne’s ball of the last century https://youtu.be/wa_iG_W0gvk, with its imaginary ‘cheese roll’ that would never have evaded the bemused Mike Gatting.”

Thanks Brian. If you want a longer pre-match read, here it is. Who says I can’t write 1500 words on one delivery?

Ten minutes to go, with the anthems and all that stuff to come. You can fill in a minute by reading Virat Kohli’s assessment (with some sympathy) of the England team’s current predicament. He’s not shy of an answer, Kohli.

What is everybody’s hunch today? It feels like a comfortable Australian win for me. New Zealand have won a lot of games but had some tight squeezes. Australia have won the toss on a batting day. They still don’t look like a complete team: they’ve won their matches based on some big opening partnerships, a couple of handy score boosts from Smith and Maxwell, and consistent genius bowling by Starc backed by dot-ball pressure from Cummins. A couple of other players have made cameos. But ultimately Australia have been consistent, even if they have parts of the XI that don’t click.

Two changes for the Kiwis, with pacer Matt Henry making way for leg-spinner Ish Sodhi, and opening bat Colin Munro dropped for Henry Nicholls after a poor run of form. One Henry in, one out. But still a Colin, thankfully.

Martin Guptill
Henry Nicholls
Kane Williamson
Ross Taylor
Tom Latham
Jimmy Neesham
Colin de Grandhomme
Mitchell Santner
Ish Sodhi
Lockie Ferguson
Trent Boult

No changes for Australia, who go in with the team that beat England.

Aaron Finch *
David Warner
Usman Khawaja
Steve Smith
Glenn Maxwell
Marcus Stoinis
Alex Carey
Patrick Cummins
Mitchell Starc
Nathan Lyon
Jason Behrendorff

That’s a bit advantage for the green and gold. Runs on the board will be key today. It’s a used pitch, and even the two fresh ones here this week have been slow and hard to time shots on.

As always, you are the OBO and the OBO is you. Get involved with today’s game by e-mailing me, as our ancestors have done since time immemorial. And I will do my best to keep an eye on the old Twitter feed as well.

Email: geoff.lemon@theguardian.com

Twitter: @GeoffLemonSport