World Cup 2019: 3 main highlights from the first week

Amidst all the buzz and excitement, the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 kicked off with the hosts England decimating the Proteas in the tournament opener. All the 10 teams got the early dose of the fierce competition in the first week of the World Cup itself.

The first week had already witnessed a few ups and downs in the World Cup. Since it's a long tournament, going forward, the teams would be gearing up themselves to correct their mistakes and make it to the knockouts.

Here is a look at the 3 highlights of the first week of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.

#1 Low-scoring matches

West Indies v Pakistan was a low-scoring affair

The buzz around the world this time for the Cricket World Cup was that it will be a high scoring tournament, with teams scoring more than 300-350 runs every game. However, to everyone's surprise, that was not the case.

The first week of the World Cup saw only 2 high scoring contests out of the 9 matches played. The matches between South Africa vs Bangladesh and England vs Pakistan were high scoring games. Apart from these two games, none of the other matches came close to breach the 300-run mark.

The English pitches have seen some high-scoring games in the past few years and even the recently concluded England vs Pakistan series advocated that the teams will be scoring big this tournament. However, that really didn't happen and teams were not able to even cross the 200-run barrier in their respective games.

This came as a big surprise for the cricket pundits and the fans alike who were preparing themselves for a run-fest at this year's Cricket World Cup. Hopefully, the fans will get to see the hard-hitting batting in the coming weeks of the tournament.

#2 Teams unable to play 50-overs

New Zealand v Sri Lanka - ICC Cricket World Cup 2019

Another highlight from the first week of the World Cup was the inability of the teams to play the full quota of allotted 50-overs.

The low-scoring games were the result of the teams lacking to adapt to the English conditions and play their full quota of 50-overs. With cloudy weather and ball swinging, either way, the batsmen failed to apply themselves and were looking to hit big every time eventually perishing for paltry scores.

This led to some dull and one-sided matches at the beginning of the World Cup, which is not a good sign for any tournament.

Except for a couple of matches, the rest of the week just saw some poor batting display from the batsmen who lacked playing to their full potential to make the World Cup an exciting cricket event.

#3 The South African slump

South African team is on a three-match losing streak

The biggest highlight of this week is the losing streak of the ever competitive and determined South African side.

Having marred with injury issues, the Proteas still have a very good core of players who can win them matches. However, they found themselves one way or the other to lose matches at the beginning of the tournament itself.

South Africa were defeated by the tournament favourites England in the opener. They continued losing their next two matches against Bangladesh and India. They have played the maximum matches (3 matches) in the first week itself and are yet to put up points on the points table.

This has come as a shocker for everyone as the Proteas team has always been known as one of the most competitive sides in the ICC Tournaments. Their next match is against West Indies who are looking lethal with their batting and bowling and would be eager to dominate the under-confident South African team.

The Proteas, however, have their work cut out. They have to win their rest of the matches in the coming weeks to be alive in the tournament and make it to the semi-finals.