Icc World Cup 2011

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Jamie How would have to be close to the worst batsman in the world playing for a Test nation, still has poor footwork, 4 of 29 balls. And **** me the catch Kamran Akmal dropped has to be just about the easiest you will ever see. Unbelievable.

NZ 2 for 69.
 
NZ 4 for 126, Franklin out for 1.

Like to know why they bat him at 5, I know they are light on batting especially with Ryder out but you'd think they would at least put Scott Styris in before him. Very strange.
 
Akhtar absolutely losing the plot here bowling tripe. Akmal's drop proving to be rather costly as Taylor gets his ton, NZ should get a decent total now :)
 
I watched Pakistan's bowling effort in the morning, and stopped watching just as Ross Taylor cut loose. I expected New Zealand to loose all their wickets, and not for 302 runs. I sometimes wonder, whether the Pakistan bowling is usually lethal, because of it's unpredictable nature. I remember Wasim Akram saying, that he did not know how his delivery would behave, before he bowled it. Ross Taylor knew where the bowler was going to bowl, at the closing stages of the Kiwi's innings. Perhaps, if one stays at the crease long enough, then one identifies what the bowler is likely to bowl.
Unlike Wasim Akram, who worked on his deliveries, the bowlers at the end of the Kiwi innings, did not impart the correct inputs when bowling. The pace bowlers repeatedly bowled in-swingers to Taylor's pads, which he kept punishing on the on side. The wickets in Sri Lanka, are the most difficult wickets to bat on. The wickets there seem to be perennially under prepared, because of the climatic conditions. However, the wicket at Kandy, which was used, was the best wicket of the World Cup. It looked superb to the eye, the bowlers had a lot of purchase, and the New Zealand team made 302 runs, also. Which brings us the question, is the Pakistan batting weaker than the New Zealand batting on helpful bowling conditions? Perhaps, the Pakistan batsman are more comfortable on spinning pitches, than they are on swinging and seaming wickets.
 
Beeswax said:
Oh man, that is depressing.

Good old dependable Saffers. How is Smith going to look in the presser? Even if journos are kind enough to not mention the 'c' word, he's going to know that everyone is thinking it.
I might stick some money on England to win the tournament now. It will stick in my craw if they do so I might as well get something from it.
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@Beeswax I could not have said that better myself. Shocking performance and it was an almighty choke. The press in South Africa mentioned choking almost in a repetitive manner. I will say one thing and that is that South Africa should that our middle order is too inexperienced and had no clue in finishing off the English. In all honesty South Africa has some big issues wrt to the World Cup. Van Wyk is a one dimensional batsmen (can only play the cut shot ;)) and there are some questions on JP Duminy and spin bowling, when he bats.
 
Better for South Africa to get the choke out of the way and with this format it shouldn't really make too much difference. Might be a good wake up call and better for it to happen now rather than in the quarters..
 
Chris Gayle out for the West Indies and off to a steady but slow start with the bat, any chance of Ireland causing another big upset today?
 
Finally.. Ireland break through with a couple of wickets after some very dull batting to only put on 90 runs after 25 overs.
 
Bangladesh win a thriller against England. Game was back and forth for the entire 100 overs until Mahmudullah and Shaiful Islam put on 58 runs for the last wicket to get the Tigers home with an over and two wickets to spare.

That blows Group B wide open now. South Africa and England will need to win twice potentially to make the quarter-finals.
 
Ljp86 said:
Bangladesh still a complete joke. I'm still perplexed as to how they have test status.
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What a difference a week makes. All out 58 to national heroes almost, crowd went ballistic when the winning runs were hit.

England in division two for sure. ;)
 
Yep the Bangers did it and hold hope for the finals. England at there usual standard. I really want to know what state that pitch was in for the SA game.
 
Hm, perhaps one could say that India were just undone by Twenty-20. It's somewhat understandable when a team collapses because of great bowling, but here it was just a matter of forgetting that this was the 50 over format of the game.
 
With the format the morons at the ICC came up plus the number of associates involved this tournament is a bit of a farce for the first round. Some very, very dull Cricket.. Canada are a complete joke and do not deserve to be on the world stage,
 
Canada's batting today was impressive, good on the blokes for taking advantage of the opportunity of facing a top side. This is likely to be their last World Cup for a while, and it's doubtful that they'll get much of a chance to face top opposition frequently outside of the World Cup, because it just isn't profitable enough, so they'd better make the most of what they have. Most of the Associate sides seem to have developed noticeably within the World Cup itself, in some aspects, so it's good to see them taking full advantage of this, and it was quite nice to watch.

There are plenty of days in the year without interesting cricket matches, many of them involving twenty-20 matches which are neither of the above qualifications, and as such I'm not sure why there is a problem here. I don't think that the matches featuring the Associates have generally been any more dull than those featuring top sides; of course, the top sides have had more 'thrillers', but if I wanted a cheap, dull and generic thriller, I would read a Dan Brown novel. The World Cup is made up of ODIs, of course it's generally uninteresting. If most of the test nations (South Africa and Zimbabwe are the main exceptions in this WC) aren't interesting to watch against minnows, it's simply because they're not interesting to watch in general.
 
Shahbaz said:
Canada's batting today was impressive, good on the blokes for taking advantage of the opportunity of facing a top side. This is likely to be their last World Cup for a while, and it's doubtful that they'll get much of a chance to face top opposition frequently outside of the World Cup, because it just isn't profitable enough, so they'd better make the most of what they have. Most of the Associate sides seem to have developed noticeably within the World Cup itself, in some aspects, so it's good to see them taking full advantage of this, and it was quite nice to watch.
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I tend to agree with you. Somehow (now that the ICC has made the decision to leave the minnows out) they must find a way to get some experience against better opposition so as to improve their game. If they don't they will simply slip further and further away from the world group. To be honest Zimbabwee and Bangladesh are no better than Ireland so do we drop them off to?

Australia won over night by 60 runs over Kenya. Had this been a test nation i would say good win, but considering the opposition i must question how good was it really? or is it that the minnows are not that far off the pace and with more work might give us all a scare. Now that would not do at all would it.
 
I must say, as much as I do regret the fact that Collins Obuya's bowling has fallen off from last time, he seems to have really matured as a batsman in the meantime. In addition, his latest knock means that his World Cup record now includes a five-for against Sri Lanka and a 98 against Australia, the first as a bowler and the latter as a batting all-rounder. Given that this is a team who had managed a 69 and 112, they certainly seem to have improved over the time; in fact, I think that their scores so far in the World Cup have more or less steadily increased. In addition, as minnows, it's pretty impressive to face bowlers from the Aussie pace attack and not really get intimidated, but rather only giving them three wickets. They're probably the guys who have suffered most from neglect in the inter mundia, especially since 2003, so hopefully they can find some way of building on this.

In addition, the Aussies seem pleased about having got some time on the pitch, so, again, I'm not sure that anyone really loses here.
 
Shahbaz said:
Hm, perhaps one could say that India were just undone by Twenty-20. It's somewhat understandable when a team collapses because of great bowling, but here it was just a matter of forgetting that this was the 50 over format of the game.
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That's what I thought, it was dud slogging that undid them more than the bowling. Like they all felt they could fill Sehwag's shoes.
 
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