Well no one predicted this super six, that’s for sure. Kenya’s ten points give them a pretty good shot of making the semi’s don’t they?
Hussain’s resignation isn’t much of a surprise, there was talk of him stepping down during the Aussie tour. Is he staying for tests or resigning from them as well?
There was quite a bit of kerfuffle in the Australian press about the potential to withdraw from the Zimbabwe game.
The government told the ACB (publicly, so it’s more a case of grandstanding than anything else - the current government’s bog on that) that Zimbabwe was under the thumb of a monster and that the cricket team shouldn’t go there because Mugabe would probably show up, eat a baby or two, and get some great publicity and international respect out of the whole thing.
The ACB said that it wasn’t their place to make cricket political, and that the only reasons that they wouldn’t go would be if they thought it was unsafe to do so, if the government stopped them from going by passing an appropriate act (as happened to prevent teams going to an apartheid South Africa) or by the ICC telling them not to go (again, see South Africa).
Neither option two or three happened, demonstrating that the Australian government are a pack of cowards and that the ICC don’t care. The ACB felt that the team wasn’t at threat, so there was no reason not to play.
A similar thing occurred in the UK, except that they did feel the team’s safety to be in jeopardy, so they pulled out.
In Sri Lanka in 95/6, the country was in the middle of a civil war, and the ACB thought that the risk to the players was too great to play - probably justifiably, as the kiwis proved.
Rightly or wrongly, none of these were political stands, except inasmuch as they were stands taken to say that the boards felt it wasn’t appropriate to involve politics in international cricket. The last time games were cancelled for political reasons were when India and Pakistan cancelled matches with each other.
“…the current government’s bIg on that…”
Bacher chimes in with why there aren’t any reserve days.
As I mentioned in my first post to the thread, I usually like the shambles surrounding a Cricket World Cup but this time it rather leaves several bad tastes.
The tournament’s lost all interest for me and I just can’t help but think ‘good riddance’ to the whole bloody mess. Very, very poor from so many prespectives … just not cricket.
… not even reserve days … it is the rainy season, isn’t it … ?
England could still be in the competition if they hadn’t lost to India and Australia. The only factor they should be blaming is their own inability to win crucial matches.
:rolleyes:
What part ?
The 3 things that I thought were amiss in the cup so far
1)No reserve days
2)Lack of some good system (other than D/L)
3) The handling of the forfeited matches.
But the tournament play itself has been pretty good. No complaints there.
I don’t think any of these are badly handled per se.
Reserve days are difficult to organise and can be just as disadvantageous to teams that have to back up two or three days later. Not only that, but if it rains for a couple of days at a stretch, you run past your reserve day and you have the same problem. It’s nice when you have the luxury of unlimited time in which to play the games, but when you don’t they aren’t practical.
Duckworth/Lewis is actually a very good system, if leaning a little toward the side batting second. I don’t know of a better system being proposed.
The forfeited matches were just that. They were scheduled long ago, and the ICC didn’t feel that there was reasonable justification for rescheduling them. I agree that the forfeiting teams should have also taken a substantial run-rate penalty (such as assigning the team forfeiting the game a 300-0 loss, or some such), but I still don’t think the way they were handled was too far off the mark.
In response to London_Calling and Gyan9’s points:
The lack of reserve days is a shame, but as BigNik points out it’s probably unavoidable.
There really isn’t any fairer system than the Duckworth Lewis. Perhaps it could be improved by showing the DL target at the end of each over. That way both teams would know whats going on and can play accordingly.
As for forfeited games, I think the points penalty is penalty enough. Of the two teams that forfeited games, one (England) is on its way home and the other (New Zealand) only just qualified for the super six. Nobbling their run rates as well would have been overkill.
The games so far have been great, with lots of upsets and action.
Who would have thought that Canada could produce a batsman like Davison? Could anyone imagine four wickets falling in the first and last overs of an innings (Sri Lanka v Canada and India v England respectively)?
And I for one think its just going to get better.
Bad news for Australia
Jason Gillespie appears not to have recovered from his injury and is expected to miss most of super 6 stage…
on the up side, this resolves the problem of who to drop from hogg, bichel or lee…
the ominous aspect for teams coming up against Australia is the fact that most of the Australian batsmen, on the whole, have been remarkably lacklustre.
We have had one good innings from Symonds, but so far it is looking like a one-off kinda display.
Martyn scored against Holland, but who really cares about that
Lehman cannot be faulted, he has had limited opurtunity and currently has an ave. of over 100 (perhaps 150+) for the tournament as he has been not-out in 4 of his 5 innings.
Ponting and Hayden have done nothing. I think the cpataincy is affecting punts.
Gilly just needs to keep doing what his doing, and the runs will come.
Bevan is Bevan, enough said.
Produced in Canada? pull the other one
He was born in Canada sure, albeit to Australian Parents, he grew up in Australia, his cricket was nurtured at the Aust. Cricket Academy and he played for both South Australia and Victoria before returning to Canada 3 years ago.
But yeh he has been pretty cool 
oh yeh the point i was making in my last post is that Australia’s Batsman are gonna start whooping arse.
I didn’t know about the Aussie connection. He can certainly bash the leather off the ball though.
As for hte Aussie batsman, Kenya’s bowlers could be in for a pummeling.
Davison bats at number 9 for South Australia in the Pura Cup, after being shown the door from Victoria. He was quoted as saying that some Australian state sdes would make the Super Sixes; the competition is that strong.
oh there is no doubt in my mind that NSW or QLD, and a few of the others on their day, would easily account for most other countries.
Mark Waugh is coming at number 7 these days for NSW. And even without brett lee and mcgrath in their team, they still have 3 with international experience, Clarke, Bracken and Macgill. Nash and Bollinger also are quality fast bowlers ( steve waugh claims Justin langer is bollingers bunny having dismissed him cheaply earlier in the season, langer denied this saying waugh is simply playing games, then proceeded to get out twice, in both the one day and 4 day match, to him.)
Add to this Slater opening the abtting and sometiems coming in down the order. SLater has ha d agreat recovery this year after being close to dropped from his club side.
Haddin is a great wicketkeeper/batsmem.
Michael Clarke would be straight into any other countries one day team.
Someone should feed Inzi.
Yes, Inzy is certainly looking a bit less potato-ish these days.
Pakistan apologize. But, not for the whole World Cup, though.
As long as its only effigies that get burned… Has Bangladesh apologised yet?
Has Bangladesh apologised yet?
They shouldn’t need to. It should be the ICC apologizing for granting them test status.
When Kenya beat Bangladesh in the last Cup match for the Banglas, it ran the “Tigers’” ODI record to 0 wins, 29 losses since the 1999 World Cup (not counting rain-outs).
If ever a team was crying out to be put out of its misery, this is it. To think that Canada and Holland managed wins, and Kenya three on the field, in this World Cup, while Bangladesh, a Full Member, never even came close to one…