Fearless England's biggest test will be India

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The first match of the World Cup starts between defending champions England and runners-up New Zealand on Thursday at the iconic Ahmedabad stadium and all eyes will be on Team England to see how they go about defending their title which they won four years ago at the Lords in a match made for heavens where they tipped the Kiwis on boundary count.

England had started the 2019 World Cup as favourites at home because of the way they had changed their style of game, playing fearless and aggressive cricket. After their early exit in the 2015 World Cup, England director Andrew Strauss and captain Eoin Morgan built a team which

changed the face of ODI cricket. From 2015 to 2019, England scored 24 plus scores of 300 and above and five scores of 400 plus, the highest being 481 against Australia. They had openers like Johnny Bairstow and Jason Roy who would go berserk from ball one and set the platform for the rest like Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali. What made them superior to the rest as they had batting till number 9 and maintained a run rate of 6.29 per over in ODIs they played after 2015. They created a template which other teams found difficult to cope with and won almost every series playing the same brand of cricket.

Four years after their first ODI world cup win, their skipper must have changed, but In Jos Buttler they have a skipper who is the most devastating white ball batsman in the world and with Ben Stokes coming out of retirement, who was their star in 2019 World Cup has added the experience England wanted in Indian conditions. Harry Brook might not have had an ideal IPL, but he is apt replacement for injured Jason Roy and along with David Malan, Liam Livingstone makes them a mighty dangerous side with the bat.

In Sam Curran they have one of the finest bowling all-rounders who is touted as their future captain, is very handy with the bat and in Mark Wood, they have the pace to rattle any team. In the spin department, they have Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali and hence have all their basses covered.

India is the only team they have not beaten in the last 8 years in a bilateral series but beat them both in the 2019 ODI World Cup as well as 2022 T20 World cup. India will be their biggest challenge in defending their title and it should be a fascinating game if both India and England are touted as favourites to make it to the final. Time will tell if this happens, but current form of both teams make them title contenders.