« Uber Malarial Videos: Telugu Superman :+: This week in American Idol: The UberDesi tapes »

Cricket

Looking at the Super 8s and beyond…

By: Anantha :+: Under: Cricket
On: ⋅ March 31, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Discuss in our off-topic forums

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The cricket world cup has been on for two weeks now and it has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The death of Bob Woolmer has caused a cloud to hang over this tournament. Fan (and commercial) favourites India have crashed out of the tournament and even the home team has not been able to draw the audiences into the grounds.

In between all this, the tournament as become just a little bit clearer. A couple of the teams have cruised into Super 8s, while some others just about spluttered in there. One pair of teams has gone further than anyone ever gave them credit for, but no one gives them any chances of proceeding beyond the Super 8s. This is the part of the tournament that everyone was waiting for. And my field of five possible semi finalists has now been whittled down to four, thanks to India’s defeats.

A couple of days after the start of the Super 8 stage, the teams that look the most comfortable are Australia (did it surprise anyone?) and New Zealand. Australia has posted 320 plus scores in all their matches after batting first, which has helped hide their inexperienced bowling attack. So, it could be a different story if Australia are restricted to a sub 270 score.

New Zealand is the other team that is cruising. I overlooked New Zealand when I was previewing the tournament and that is a mistake that I have to acknowledge. And if their injury list does not get any longer, I can now see them as a possible winner too. Shane Bond has been the bowler of the tournament so far. While other bowlers in this World Cup may have gotten more than the 6 wickets that he has claimed, those bowlers will offer their non bowling arm in exchange for Bond’s 2.58 economy rate. Their batting has been firing as well, though Lou Vincent’s loss might affect them adversely.

Sri Lanka beat India fairly easily in the end and they almost beat South Africa too. Their bowling seems to be clicking at the right time. Malinga has been wayward at times, but if he does hit the right spot, teams have to be wary lest they go the way South Africa almost did. Murali, well, has been Murali and even the Indians (normally great players of spin) were all at sea against him. Their batting seems to be steady, their stumble against South Africa notwithstanding. They disposed of Bangladesh and Bermuda with some power hitting, while their win against India was an all round effort on the field. It certainly must be reassuring to know that they have a front line batsman (Atapattu) cooling his heels in the dressing room. Or may be that’s not so much a good idea at all.

Well, what can I say about South Africa? Just a couple of weeks ago, I heard a couple of ex cricketers talk about Kallis in the same breath as Sobers, Miller, Imran etc. But an inexplicable innings from him against Australia brought the old stories out again. As a result South Africa had to let go of a chance to hand out Australia a heavy loss. And Against Sri Lanka, they almost choked with the finish in sight. They barely avoided writing another chapter in their sordid World Cup history, but I think they still have time to do that. They will be in the semi finals, almost by default, it seems, but a finals spot seems uncertain.

As for the other teams, West Indies and England are having the same sort of World Cups that I thought they would. It appears that the West Indies is plagued by selection issues way more that I thought they are and that will not bode well for their chances this year. The organizational issues that have plagued this World Cup, the steep costs of tickets etc. will play a role as well, since the team will be deprived of local support.

England has stuttered its way through so far. Their win against Ireland today was not as comprehensive as it looks and if there was any team that took away the brownie points from today’s game, it was certainly not England. They had a poor outing against New Zealand as well and so I don’t see them defeating anyone else apart from Bangladesh and may be West Indies.

Bangladesh and Ireland seem to be having the World Cup of their life this year. Going by current form, Bangladesh are certainly capable of giving a fright to teams like West Indies and England. May be they’d even beat these two teams, but their Cinderella story will end with the Super 8. Ireland’s chances are even poorer. But if they play like played today for the rest of their campaign, they will end up as one of the positive stories of this controversial World Cup.

So three weeks after the start of the World Cup, the field looks just the same as it was. The departure of India has been offset by the consistent performance of New Zealand which looks like one of the contenders. But it is still so open that I will not dare name my pick for the winner. I will wait for April 28 and you certainly should, too.

« Uber Malarial Videos: Telugu Superman :+: This week in American Idol: The UberDesi tapes »
Discuss in our off-topic forums