The Cricket World Cup began over the weekend with co-hosts India and Bangladesh playing the first match. Here’s a link to the excellent as always cricinfo coverage.
There’ve been no surprises so far with minnows Kenya and Canada getting a thrashing from New Zealand and Sri Lanka. Australia play Zimbabwe in about an hour which promises to be as one-sided. Still there always seems to be at least one upset in the early phases - maybe the Netherlands can up set England later this week.
Anyway - while we wait for the more competitive games - who do you think will go through and win the whole thing? Will it be victory at home (sort of) for the batting juggernaut that is India? Will Sri Lanka repeat their success from the last time the cup was played in the subcontinent (1995)? Or can a new look Australia come through for the fourth time in a row? What say you dopers?
According to espncricinfo.com, Australia haven’t lost a World Cup match in two and a half World Cups. I don’t have a good feeling about this year though - we are just too inconsistent. Sri Lanka or India will win I reckon.
I don’t think Australia will win either - though they seem to be doing allright against Zimbabwe right now. My favorites at the moment are India, but I have a feeling that SA could play a part as well.
I love cricket - but wake me up when this thing gets to the quarter finals. It seems like we’re going to an awful lot of trouble to eliminate Canada, Kenya and Zimbabwe from Group A and Ireland and Holland from Group B. About the only games that really have something riding on them in the opening part of the tournament - as far as I can tell - are those involving Bangladesh.
I’ll probably watch the England games (and maybe the Bangladesh games) and keep an eye on who is performing well but the format of this tournament is utterly bonkers.
Yes that is correct if by ICC (which actually stands for the International Cricket Council, the global cricket governing body for all formats of the game) you actually mean the current world cup. Many people think that this particular world cup will be a much-needed boost for the ODI format that is currently squeezed in between test matches and 20/20. I love a good 50-over match and this particular tournament really has the potential to become a classic, IMO.
Yeah, I meant the World Cup (sorry for confusing the terms).
When I spent a few weeks in Australia last year the consensus seemed to be that ODI was on it’s way out. There was some sort of series going on and very few folks showed up, it seemed. Conventional wisdom seemed to be that 20/20 was where it was at.
Personally, I can see the pros and cons of each form, but it does seem that the “long but not multi-day long” format is in a bit of an odd spot when you already have a “multi-day long” and a “short enough to watch a whole match” length available.
Yes, like a non-striker backing up too far, the ODI does seem stuck in a bit of a no-man’s land. Still I prefer 50 overs to the 20-20 crapshoot.
As for the the minnows, well they haven’t bitten yet but I’m still hopeful of at least one upset. Particularly as this is their last time at the big show.
See my post at #4. Looks pretty amusing about now.
Though England are still to bat in their game against Holland, they have been absolutely shambolic towards the end of the period. ten Doeschate played very well - but when you have someone cleaned up by a yorker get a reprieve because you don’t have 4 men in the circle, routine catches being dropped, Bad Jimmy turning up and heaving full tosses down leg side and KP being brought on to bowl utter filth in the middle overs, you have to wonder where the game plan was and how switched on the players were.
I’ll be very amused if England lose this game. Even as an England fan, it will be one more inglorious chapter in our abject history since 1992 at the World Cup. After the mild delirum of seeing England secure The Ashes down under, England flailing around helplessly will be like a return to normality.
Well - they managed the run chase with 8 balls to spare in the end. Still a total shambles in the field though. England have India next. Not looking forward to what they could do to England, if they perform as in the first innings here.
A great effort from the Dutch and in particular Ryan ten Doeschate, maybe he’ll get an IPL contract out of last night’s performance?
I had a look on statsguru to see whether this was the highest score by an associate nation against a test-playing nation. Kenya’s 347 against Bangladesh happened in 1997 - before Bangladesh was a test-playing nation so doesn’t count to my mind. I think 292 might be it but I lack the skills to be sure if I’m not missing another big score by a minnow.
Yes I saw that as well and wondered whether they’re referring to Kenya v Bangladesh or another game. I think they are though (long explanation follows).
If you search stats guru (you can select all the associate nations vs all the test-playing ones using the check boxes) Kenya’s high score of 347 is the only associate nation score higher than last night’s total. Then searching Kenya against test nations other than Bangladesh reveals a high score of ‘only’ 285. So unless Kenya have scored more than 292 against Bangladesh since 2000 then last nights match set a record. A quick check (Kenya v Bangladesh since 1 Jan 2000) shows a high score for Kenya of 232.*
So I for one think the Netherlands last night scored the highest ODI total by an Associate nation against a Test-playing nation.
*I for one was stoked to see that statsguru’s '21st century starts from the proper date of 1 January 2001.
Well that was embarrassing - New Zealand were crushed by Australia last night. Oh well maybe Sri lanka and Pakistan can give us a more exciting game tonight.
India/England nicely poised with India scoring 338 all out in exactly 50 overs. It could have been a lot worse for England, seems the fielding has tidied up a fair amount. The only remaining question is exactly how pathetically we will fail to chase this :).