World Cup Thoughts - March 16th

After many many days of play we finally bid goodbye to our first team. While one more team dropped out of the race for the World Cup. 

• Ireland had the South Africans in trouble at one stage. But South Africa got away thanks to JP Duminy's 99 (who as per Sunil Gavaskar in the commentary missed out by 1 run on a well deserved century). 
• We bid farewell to Canada. Nothing was expected of them. But hey had a decent outing here. Beat Kenya and had Pakistan in trouble for a long time before letting them off the hook. Nothing else to write about in their performances.
• Also goodbye to John Davison, the oldest player in this tournament. A man who will always be remembered for that blistering century against the West Indies in the 2003 edition. And taking the catch to dismiss Ponting was a nice way to leave the world stage. The 40 year old also was part of the oddest opening combination with a 16 year old Nitish Kumar.
• Tomorrow is a "Do or Die" for England at least against the West Indies. Hopefully, if nothing else they will entertain.

World Cup Thoughts - March 3rd

After the grand Irish victory, yesternight, 2 seemingly boring matches were lined up. Here are today's World Cup thoughts.

• South Africa hammered Netherlands by 232 run margin. The batting machine was efficient with Amla & de Villiers getting centuries while no one really clicked for the Dutch.
• The 2nd game between Canada and Pakistan turned out to be much closer than expected. Pakistan certainly in quite a bit of bother till Afridi came up with a 5-wicket haul.
• Canada looked liked an immigrant XI more than anything else.
• They might have been beaten on the field but the Canadians certainly did not fall behind on thee verbal front. It was certainly funny seeing all the talk going on.
• ICC seemed to be using this game to popularise the concept of the UDRS. Daryll Harper made one mistake after another and then kept on getting corrected by the Decision Review System. 
• Tomorrow 2 critical matches from the Quarter-final perspective are lined up. Zimbabwe against new Zealand and Bangladesh against West Indies. My predictions - Zimababwe and Bangladesh to win.

Cricketing Joke of the Day

Q. What do you say when the "Laughing Buddha" becomes serious?

A. Gautam Gambhir [Gautam being the name of Buddha and Gambhir meaning "serious"]

World Cup Thoughts - Feb 28th

After the fantastic tied match between India and England, the World Cup went back to sleep on Monday with 2 low profile one-sided matches taking place. The only good thing was that in the hangover of the India-England game these two went almost unnoticed. Here are the thoughts for the day.

• Zimbabwe indulged in some minnow bashing. Played a whole army of spinners and thrashed Canada. Tatenda Taibu (who yours truly had selected as the Trump player in his cricinfo league) picked up the Man of the Match while Ray Price (another slection :D) destroyed the Canadian top order.
• Netherlands just could not sustain the momentum from the previous game against England and were destroyed by the West Indies. My players (RTD & Bravo) did not have that good a game. 
• A world cup hattrick does deserv special mention for Kemar Roach.
• I have said it before, spin will rule the Cup. And that is why I have a feeling that Zimbabwe might sneak into the Quarters ahead of the Kiwis. Even West Indies are opening the bowling with Benn.
• The Associates are better off batting first, given most of the games are day-nighters. Score big and then funny things can happen while chasing under the lights.
•  Today's prediction - Sri Lanka (the biggest of the minnow bashers) will roll over Kenya.

World Cup Thoughts - Feb 20th

The ICC has decided to reduce the number of particpating countries to 10 in the next World Cup. A decision which has been universally slammed. Today Kenya & Canada did everything to justify ICC's stand.

Kenya crashed to 69 all out which the Kiwis chased in 8 overs and the match got over before lunch. In the 2nd game Canada got thrashed by 210 runs. Two heavily one-sided games on a Sunday.

Thoughts for the Day

• Tournament Scheduling - Why couldn't we have 2 big teams playing on a Sunday rather than such lopsided encounters.
• I hardly watched the games today. Not much off the Kenya-New Zealand game (there wasn't much on show either). And the Sri Lanka - Canada i saw 2 balls off the Canadian innings. Rizwan Cheema faced off against Murali and hammered one big six. So at least I did get to see somethingcome true.

Now hoping Australia - Zimbabwe is not as lopsided as the other games. And I expect Australia to run over Zimbabwe though hoping for Zimbabwe to show some fight.