England - Beware!!!

England made every other competitor to stand up and look at an opponent capable enough to spoil the chance of at least one of the teams which is expected to sail to the next round. English players exhibited a rare fighting spirit which was missing so far in the tournament. The English fielded well and bowled with a disciplined line. They seldom gave chance to the Lankans who appeared to take the same strategy they employed against the Windies. They started cautiously but when they wanted to pace up the innings they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. They ended up making a target which was not enough but competitive given their bowling forte.

England’s reply started off with a disaster, losing 2 quick wickets. But the Bell-Pieterson partnership showed the required maturity to steady the English ship. It did not take long for Sri Lanka to come back and England were staring at a defeat which looked unavoidable. Then the dual team of Bopara and Nixon steadied the innings and brought them closer to the target and pretty soon, England was within the reach of a great victory.
This took the action until the last ball. Victory balanced on the control of nerves and Fernando did an impressive job claiming Bopara of the very last ball of the innings. At the end, England will be ruing over the loss but Sri Lanka will gladly add the 2 vital points to its kitty and the crowd could not have asked for a better entertainment in this otherwise boring,lengthy tournament.

Gentleman's game?

It is human to fend away the blame that falls on us. But it takes a gentleman to accept one’s fault. Cricket is believed to be the gentleman’s game. Indian cricket is at the cross-roads of making an important decision towards achieving greater success in the game or fall further from this abyss, it is already in.
The animosity existing between the various sects of the Indian cricket body has resulted in each one pitting the fault against the other. It has been fashionable to put the fault on someone to save one’s own back. This is not time for that. It is time when the so called contributors to Indian cricket act mature by having an honest appraisal of them and coming out with their mistakes. Pointing fingers at each other will only make the media happy, who are waiting like vultures to witness a chaos in the cricketing body and in turn capitalize on that for their revenues. It seems at least someone (the media) is playing his natural game.
There is ubiquitous disappointment in a cricket frenzied nation, which is natural. But a sport is a sport, it is not war. Let us only give what it deserves. Indian cricket fans (true ones) will only hope that these trying times after the World Cup will end with good results for the team.

Playing Nostradamus...

It cannot get any better than this. 4 teams-Australia, Srilanka, South Africa and New Zealand, now have a realistic chance of winning the World Cup. Australia is a clear favourite. But this is the game of cricket; never discount the chances of others. This edition has been interesting thanks to the teams involved and their undying desire to win the cup. The super eights have been a revelation. All these 4 teams have shown their spirit by adapting to the conditions here and playing in a very sensible manner – very creditable for the professionalism that they have portrayed.
This time, it will not take a Nostradamus to find the team that will move to the next round. The writing is simple. The money is now on these teams. But who will go further to win the cup? All the predicted four have shown maturity and all characteristics required to make a champion team.
My prediction of the outcome at the end of super eights is Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka in the order of their rankings. South Africa and Srilanka will have the same points but since South Africa had beaten Sri Lanka, it will end up higher. The first semi-final will be between Australia and Sri Lanka where my bet is on Sri Lanka. They will cohere together as a unit and beat the Aussies. In the other semi-final, New Zealand will take on South Africa and emerge triumphant.
That leaves the final to be between 2 very evenly placed teams. Both the teams are so capable of upsetting the opposition and they have a team which is very adaptable to any conditions, be it spin or pace bowling. But my gut feeling suggests that New Zealand is going to have the last laugh. Anyone has a different reasoning? Share it…