The match report by the Veteran: The 40^th match of the WC 2023 was an important match for England. They were long way out of this world cup. However, to qualify for the champion’s trophy this was a must win. Qualification is not yet confirmed for the defending champion though as one more game is left for each team. Nonetheless, defending champion will try to forget this world cup as soon as possible. This match was one exception though. Riding on Stokes’s century and couple of half centuries, one by Malan at top and the other by Woakes at lower order, England scored 339. In response, Netherlands never really found any footing in the match and got all out with 179 runs on board.

Off the field, in the IL Master group the Veteran clutched it again with his vice captain for second time in last 4 matches. Veteran who had quite a good tournament so far was lucky enough to clutch with the same tactics twice. Both the times his trump card was exposed by the master of trump card the Chupe Rustam. He knew and predicted exactly what is going to happen and it happened. With this win the Veteran now have the highest wins and he is for sometime leading the leader board as well. Hope the luck continues for some more matches. Best of luck for that and congratulations.

The second came the Invincible. He too is having a great tournament. He also did a clutch in the very end but he did with a different player. Last ball stamping by Buttler brought him to the mention zone. The fight was pretty close at the top though. Between the top and 4th position the gap was 18 points and all happened in the very last ball. Coming back to Invincible, with 9 matches remaining he is the closest to the Veteran and one good match or couple of decent matches could get him over the rope. Great game today and a nice clutch. Congratulations.

The wooden spoon of the match went to the Bond. Out of all the masters Bond’s performance mimics England. Both of them won the last tournament and both of them failed miserably to do justice to their names. Hard luck mate. Good luck for the remaining matches.

The winners so far

• The Invincible : 5
• The Clutch God : 1
• The Veteran : 8
• The Dark Horse : 6
• The Lone Wolf : 3
• The Chupe Rustam: 6
• The Terminator : 3
• The Bond : 2
• The Ingenious : 2
• The Dude : 2
• The Debutant : 2

The wooden spoons

• The Veteran : 3
• The Lone Wolf : 6
• The Bond : 4
• The Invincible: 5
• The Ingenious : 8
• The Dude : 3
• The Terminator : 1
• The Betulose : 1
• The ClutchGod : 4
• The Dark Horse : 2
• The Chupe Rustam : 1
• The Debutant : 2

The Leader board

With another win Veteran remained at top. However, the Invincible is not very far