Aussie spin star out to expose familiar England frailties

Blossoming leg-spinner Tanveer Sangha believes Australia can once again expose England's weakness against spin bowling in a pressure-laden Under-19 World Cup game when the rivals meet on Thursday.

A shock first-up defeat to the West Indies has made Australia's last group-stage match against England a virtual knockout, with the winner a near certainty to book a quarter-final berth for the South Africa-hosted tournament.

Lloyd Pope flummoxed England's highly-rated young batters the last time the sides met in the quarter final of the 2018 tournament, taking 8-35 to return the best figures in the competition's history.

With Sangha taking nine wickets at 4.88 in their first two games at the ongoing event, Australia again possess a game-changing wrist-spinning weapon.

And after thrashing Nigeria by 10 wickets, the Chris Rogers-coached side walked over to Kimberley’s adjoining ground to watch England go down by 71 runs on the DLS method to the Windies and identified some familiar flaws.

"The theme with all their batsmen (was that) they struggled against spin, and a certain type of spin with certain fields," said Sangha, who followed up his 4-30 in the three-wicket loss to the Windies with 5-14 against Nigeria.

"So I'll definitely be looking at that and trying to replicate it. I think it will align to my type of bowling."

There's a simmering excitement over the abilities of the slightly-built Sangha, who was awarded a two-year deal with KFC BBL club Sydney Thunder in November.

The 18-year-old watched Shane Warne growing up and has developed a close bond with Fawad Ahmed since the latter spotted him playing for Australia's U16s in Melbourne in 2018, but insists he hasn't modelled his game on one particular leg-spinner.

Sangha hopes to match Pope's feats against England but stressed he is a significantly different bowler to the flame-haired South Australian who has since gone on to make his debut in all formats at domestic level since his eye-catching entrance at the last U19 World Cup.

"Me and 'Popey' are different bowlers," Sangha explained. "Popey has an amazing wrong'un that's incredibly hard to pick and obviously England found it really hard.

"I don't take most of my wickets with wrong'uns, I try to take them with my stock ball and try to strategically get batsmen out more than anything.

"I don't try to bowl as quick as I can. I try to vary my pace and I'm not as quick as other leg-spinners in this tournament that I've seen. I try to get it up there above their eye line and spin it past both their edges. If it's really fast, it doesn't turn as much.

"The conditions (in South Africa) have suited me quite well because the pitches have been turning and bouncing, I've just got to be consistent with my lengths and I reap the rewards."

Presuming England and the Windies both defeat Nigeria, on Thursday and Saturday respectively, the loser of the Australia-England game will not be able to finish higher than ninth.

Such a result for either team, two of the world’s strongest cricketing nations that invest considerable resources into junior development, would represent a major failure.

"It pretty much is (a knockout), whoever wins will pretty much go through to the next stage," said Sangha. "That's how we're preparing and the boys are preparing for a must-win game.

"It's a clear mindset now, we know what we need to do and we know what mistakes we've made and won't make them again.

"We know how to prepare for the England team, what their strengths and weaknesses are, how we're going to play against them. If we just jell together as a team, I definitely reckon we'll win."

Thursday’s match between Australia and England will be broadcast live on Fox Cricket and Kayo from 7pm Australian Eastern time.