Champions Trophy: 5 bowlers to look out for

50 overs cricket is a batsman's game, or so the conventional wisdom goes.
But the Champions Trophy is being played in England, which means a different ball game :)

With mostly overcast skies and a drizzle here and there, the conditions in England could favour bowlers in the ICC Champions Trophy, especially swing bowlers who can extract help from the pitch.

Norma Godinho picks 5 bowlers to watch out for in the ODI championship.

Mitchell Starc)

The Australian left-arm paceman played a big role in his team's 2015 World Cup triumph.

Starc finished with 22 wickets in that tournament and will hope to torment batsmen again with his tearaway bowling.

Starc, who is returning from an injury lay-off -- he suffered a stress facture in his foot and pulled out of the India series -- brings the X-factor with his pace and ability to swing the old and new ball.

He can also swing the bat down the order as we saw in the first Test in Pune.

Kagiso Rabada

With dogged hard work, the South African has emulated his legendary team-mate Dale Steyn and is currently the World No 1 ODI bowler.

The 22 year old had a dramatic international ODI debut, taking a record 6/16, including a hat-trick, against Bangladesh two years ago.

Cricket South Africa's youngest-ever Cricketer of the Year indicated what batsmen can expect in the Champions Trophy when he rattled the English batting in the final ODI game this week.

Not only is Kagiso a wicket-taker, he is also a good defender, not one to leak runs easily.

Umesh Yadav

How many of you remember that Umesh was among the top three bowlers in the 2015 World Cup, with 18 scalps?

Since then, he has improved by leaps and bounds and is today clearly the spearhead of India's pace attack.

Complementing his pace, it is his ability to swing the ball both ways, hitting the right line and length early on, that will boost India's hopes of defending the title this coming fortnight.

Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa -- India's opponents in the league stages -- will be apprehensive about Umesh's skills, especially after his lethal spell in the warm-up game against New Zealand, where he took 3/16.

Chris Woakes

Ben Stokes may have walked away with the accolades after IPL 10, but this Englishman was a marquee attraction for his franchise.

Woakesy was the leading wicket-taker for the Kolkata Knight Riders -- which has Umesh Yadav and Trent Boult in its ranks -- taking 17 wickets in 13 games.

In the pre-Champions Trophy ODI series against South Africa, he demolished A B De Villiers' side in the first game, taking 4/38.

The England team management is concerned about his fitness, but you can be sure that Woakesy will be the bowler to applaud if he gets his fitness certificate.

Trent Boult

'Thunderbolt', the top-ranked ODI bowler in 2016, can stun any batting line -up on his day.

In the 2015 World Cup, the Kiwi was joint top wicket-taker with Mitchell Starc, picking 22 wickets at an average of 16.86.

Though he has slipped in the rankings since last year -- 'Lightning Bolt' is currently in 6th place -- do remember he took 6/33 in the ODI againt Australia in Hamilton earlier this year.

His bowling in recent weeks may be disappointing by his standards -- he had just 5 wickets in 6 IPL games and took just one wicket in the warm-up game against India -- but you can count on him to fire on Friday when the Kiwis take on their old enemy, the Aussies.