Thursday, March 5, 2015

World Cup 2015: Short Notes - March 5th

After a break of 1 day, in which the cricketing world's focus was on BCCI's presidency battle, the World Cup resumed on Tuesday. 
  • Seems like ICC had had enough of the brickbats. So they asked the big boys to go all Sparta on the Associates. Result - South Africa, Australia & Pakistan hammering the little fellows to pulp, with all of them recording huge wins.
  • We now bid farewell to Scotland whose purely mathematical chances of qualifying have evaporated. They were never in with a chance but at least they had the best kit.
  • These one team bat-a-thons are getting ridiculous to watch. The mind is numbed from seeing teams score at 15 an over for the last 10 overs. What are the bowlers supposed to do? And the big scoreboard pressure gets to the team chasing and the contest is all but over within a few overs into the chase. Not good for any game.
  • Krishna Chandra Karate - the best name of the tournament.
  • Shaiman Anwar of UAE leading the run-charts. Who would have thunk this?
  • Sachin Tendulkar apparently wants a 25 team World Cup. Well that will be just a series of mismatches. My suggestion is have 16 teams in 4 groups (like in West Indies) followed by straight knock-outs (unlike the long unending Super 8 stage in West Indies). Or you can have 2 groups of 4 each in the 2nd round followed by semis & finals (like the T20 World Cup). Enough said.
  • No some crucial games coming up. More than that hoping for a few genuine contests. Need not be a edge-of-the-seat cliffhanger all the time but is a contest too much to ask for?

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