Come on now, this is Australia in a Final. They are still firmly on top.
Was attempting a reverse woof.
Smith would have been Not Out on review.
Aus on top though, WinViz in the 70%s for them.
My WhatsApp community (Pakistanis) is starting to buzz again.
Congratulations to the Aussie fans here!
Just ridiculous record in WC finals.
Yeah, well played, s’pose, one of those finals I’d prefer both teams to lose, and once Marnus and Travis got things settled it wasn’t really very interesting for a neutral.
Yes, congratulations on another well-deserved Cup! At this point, I think I can safely say no one will catch them in World Cups in my lifetime.
That is a rather outrageous win to a team who played a good tournament vs the (by far) best team in the tournament.
Winning in India with just one specialist spinner and a very good but well known pace lineup. No prizes for ingenuity. But it worked when it needed to.
A case of strategic regression with the win going to the guys who played like it was 2015 and that high octane T20 franchise cricket hadn’t taken over the ODI format.
By playing two allrounders (Head & Maxwell) AUS were able to balance out that Smith & Lambuschagne aren’t the boundary hitting free hitters of yore or other teams. But if a couple of the tonkers at the top got out early there was still batting depth. And it was needed. Repeatedly.
CWC is a batters game (AUS v NZ with 771 runs, whatever is being played it isn’t cricket to my old-school eyes)
Only one team scored 3,000 runs (IND), only one other got close (AUS) which includes the benefit of playing 2 finals.
90% of IND’s runs came from their #1-5, the tournament average was 74%. AUS was 70%.
93% of IND’s boundaries came from their #1-5
For AUS 28% of tournament runs came from their #5-6. For IND that contribution was just 6%. Because (except for the final) they didn’t need them.
Batting #6 for IND can’t be a particularly attractive option. Though who could resist the opportunity to rub shoulders with the elite? Rampant egos above you. You don’t get a bat often. Maybe the odd late strike and noodle singles to give one of the top order the strike.
Then IND gets to a final where the selected pitch doesn’t come onto the bat as well for the blistering top order would like and lose the toss. I think Rohit was going to bat. It suited the national narrative better. Blast 400, torniquet the chase. Then with sound bowling and fielding the middle order who haven’t had much time in the middle are exposed. Yet the crowd and nation expect them to score as freely as Rohit and Virat. They came up short.
The lack of runs meant that the AUS strategy to chase 300 (one of a rotating cast gets a ton, somebody supports with a 50) is capable of chasing down 240 with 7 overs to spare.
Not sure how significant the dew factor was, but it didn’t help the IND bowling.
I noted that Modi just handed over the trophy without a speech, rather than the nationalistic one expected if the team had triumphed. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Errata: Meant to bracket the #6-7s
ROFL
World Cup report cards are out:
By the esteemable Andrew Fidel Fernando
Afghanistan
Teacher’s remarks: You cuties. You did so well! And you did so well without upsetting the regular balance of things,
Best work: Beating England to not only set your campaign on a good run, but also trip them down a set of stairs
Worst work: Giving away 201 runs to Glenn Maxwell,
Australia
Teacher’s remarks … And then you came first, yet again. No one can figure out how you keep doing this.
Best work: Your captain getting the wicket of Virat Kohli and turning that final.
Worst work: Your captain saying he was “sad to see” England’s downfallat this World Cup, when we all know he very much was not sad.
Bangladesh
Teachers remarks: Never got close to the top spots, as usual. Full marks for consistency.
Best work: Your captain delivering a consoling shoulder tap to the batter he’d just appealed to have timed-out
Worst work: Everything else.
England
Teachers remarks: Strutted in like big dogs, with big attitudes and major expectations. Then proceeded to crap your pants.
Best work: Beating Netherlands by 160. You rock stars.
Worst work: Choosing to bat first when you won the toss against Pakistan. As if tanking your own campaign wasn’t enough.
India
Teachers remarks: The best student through the course of the term, ticking all the achievement boxes, sometimes embarrassing the other students with how much better you are than them across all subjects. There were times when it felt like your dad was doing your homework for you, but he’s the main donor to this school, and who am I to dock points? Yes, you stumbled in the final, but note that I am still giving you a special 10/10 perfect score. Actually 100/10. And all the stickers you want from the gold star sticker book. Plus free fruit juices for all of next term. If it were up to me, you’d be first place forever. I would have redone the final. Please tell your dad I don’t want to lose my job.
Best work: Beating Pakistan in a stadium of 250,000 at least, surely. Jai Hind.
Worst work: If you’d had Hardik Pandya you’d have smashed the final too, wow what a shame, don’t be sad, here are more stickers.
Netherlands
Teachers remarks: You did not just make up the numbers. You were a valued member of this class. It doesn’t matter to us that you’re from humble backgrounds.
Best work: Beating South Africa
Worst work: Would have been really fun if you beat England too, but you didn’t quite manage it.
New Zealand
Teachers remarks: Yes, you’re all so glad for the opportunity to be here, and this country is such a wonderful place to play cricket, plus the fans are so passionate, and the sky is such a beautiful colour today, but would it kill you to have more to your collective personality beyond being nice?
Best work: Rachin Ravindra’s hair.
Worst work: Rachin Ravindra telling the worldhis first name was a mix of Rahul (Dravid) and Sachin (Tendulkar), until his dad said it was “nothing of the sort”, proving that if you’re of South Asian descent it doesn’t matter if you’ve made the most runs ever for a World Cup debutant, your parents are still going to somehow find a way to shame you in public.
Pakistan
Teachers remarks: You really need to stop living in 1992. We went through this in the last World Cup. Sometimes losing a lot is not a prerequisite to not losing, and is just a sign that more losing is about to come.
Best work: Announcing your major captaincy reshuffle while the rest of the world was focused on the World Cup knockouts.
Worst work: Some of your World Cup showings didn’t cover themselves in glory.
South Africa
Teachers remarks: You didn’t do what everyone expected you to do. But you also didn’t quite blow those expectations out of the water. Tissues are now a mandatory kit-bag item for South Africa in World Cups
Best work: Not choking in the semi-final and just losing it despite your best efforts.
Worst work: Not being good enough to even get into a position in the semi-final for choking to be an option.
Sri Lanka
Teachers remarks: No matter how bad your playing XI is, it will never be as bad as your administration. But man, has your playing XI sucked.
Best work: Beating England. Very least you could do. But nice.
Worst work: Your administrators asking for the ICC to suspend their own board after the Sri Lankan courts gave a stay order ousting the interim committee that replaced the board for roughly 24 hours
Hell of a test match going on in South Africa:
Having bowled out South Africa for 55, India were sitting pretty pretty on 153/4… before they lost their last 6 wickets without scoring. They took another 3 SA wickets, for a total of 23 wickets on day 1. Seems unlikely to last day 2.
Im having a hard time accepting that all this happened in one day.
I went into a meeting with India 130-odd for 4. Came out to find South Africa at 30-0 in the second innings. I had to double check that I was following the same match on Cricinfo.
Well, India need 20 with 8 wickets in hand, which normally you’d say was rock solid but everyone involved must be thinking its not as straightforward as that.
When the third went down with four runs needed, I had a brief moment of hope. Lightning couldn’t strike twice.
Shortest result Test in history
Junior cricket coaches on two continents placed on suicide watch.
The good news for junior coaches is that if things keep going as they are, their youngsters will start getting call ups for Tests (at least in SA). Seven uncapped players including the captain!
To which you could add starting a pub brawl with Joe Root (??!!!)
To those who played with him (not myself), there is a view he could be a very good captain (innovative, astute, proactive). It was as vice captain or in the “leadership group” where he took upon himself the role of the team’s attack dog. And became the brutally effective Australian deck specialist but boorish yobbo that I will remember.
Definitely a man who brought out conflicting emotions in me. I simultaneously loved watching him bat, but loved it even more when he got out. I was watching the infamous match vs. South Africa, and once I found out he was one of the masterminds behind the ball tampering, I took joy in watching him get suspended and suffer, while simultaneously waiting for the day that he’d play again. Even watching him walk off earlier today (US time zone), the “sadness” was countered by the fact that I’ll still see his punchable face in T20 leagues. I’m sure you cricket historians will point to others like him, but to me he’s one of a kind.
Here’s the funny thing about Warner (and Smith and Bancroft - the other two co-conspirators in the Sandpaper affair).
Smith got a one-match suspension and Bancroft got a reprimand and a fine - from the International Cricket Council. Warner got no sanction at all. It was actually the Australian Cricket Board who suspended them for a year - much to the delight of the cricket-loving Australian public. We don’t like cheating anymore than anyone else does.
However, because Warner and Co received such a severe ban (albeit only from their home Cricket Board), everybody now assumes that they were the ‘worst cheaters ever’ - when in fact, they did much the same as many, many other players have done over the years and received fines, sanctions or bans from the ICC - including England captains, South African Captains, various bowlers and fielders along the way from just about every test-playing nation - who all received no punishment from their own cricket boards.
The ICC raised their penalties for ball-tampering after the ACB penalties for the sandpaper incident were annonced and administered.