Tag: world cup

De Ghuma Ke World Cup…

On By deepozIn Archive 2014-20109 Comments

The world Cup 2011 is simmering and started living up to the lyrics of its anthem, “De Ghuma Ke”. It seems to have inspired quite a few players including a totally unknown teenager called Hiral Patel, of Canada!! The caning he gave to the world cup champions in a lost cause, especially the six over covers off the fastest bowler in the tournament Shaun Tait, will linger in the memory long long after the dust has settled in Mumbai. There has been a lot of talk about the minnows bashing; for a change it was nice to see Champion bashing! That’s the beauty of sport; king for a day is far better than a pauper for life. Love it!!

 One swallow does not make a summer, agreed; but it can make a painfully bad memory for life for some! Ask Zubin Surkari, who copped the brunt of Tait’s thunder and came away with three balls! The Great Australian selector Andrew Hilditch must have been moved sufficiently to say “Tait needs to improve“!! What? for missing the goolies?? For heaven’s sake, Taity looked like the best bowler even in that game with searing reverse swings! Ah, but then what else do you expect from an Aussie chairman of selectors, the only one to have lost three Ashes?

The tournament has by far, looked the best in all editions…………er, except 1983! Writing this just before the 39th game between South Africa and Bangladesh begins, a couple of upsets, an associate member scalping a test side, a high scoring tie, smash-bang batting, 19 tons, 6 fifers and two hat-tricks! Bowlers in general have been at the receiving end though with the advent of subcontinent spring (which is more than summer in some participating countries) slowly but steadily, they are beginning to dictate. The wickets like highways earlier, have started changing their nature to more brown coloured and slow low challenging 22 yards that normally batsmen, that spoiled species of this sport,  lament; some indeed start calling it names like “rolled mud“! Thank god for the summer, or the killing fields of the subcontinent would make every young boy and girl throw the ball away for a bat. I don’t mind wickets yielding a bit of spin or slowing down a bit. This is sub-continent and you expect that. Gives bowlers something to work with and generates a bit of doubt in the minds of the batsman and prevents him from clearing the front foot and give it a heave-ho! Thank god for the summer for bringing cricket back to its original form rather than converting it into that cross-batted Yankee contraption, better known as Baseball…..

That’s why I am very happy to note two wonderful new comers, two bowlers, two leg spinners, who have announced themselves in this world cup. South Africa’s import from Pakistan, Imran Tahir has had a great start. At the time of writing this, in 3 games Tahir has highest wickets of any in SA camp. 11 wickets at 8.9 ea and a great economy rate of 3.84.
And bowling against Bangla later today,  he will have every opportunity to improve upon that. Admittedly, while he has is yet to play against major teams playing spin well, like India and Sri Lanka, his start is looking very promising.

Tahir though is not a young man as this next fellow, Devendra Bishoo. What a gem this kid is. I reckon we will hear more about him in future, if Windies management treat him properly. At the young age of 25, his control over leggies was quite remarkable, even while playing against experienced English batters. He is also a very good fielder. I am not sure if he will play against India in the last group game or not; I would love to see more of him and against top batters. He has a good slider but I did not see a good googly. Enough time for the young man to learn a few tricks of the trade, which in my opinion, is the hardest skill to master in cricket.

Talk of surprises..It is very hard to expect surprises from Ricky Ponting. Like it was no surprise to see a glum and grumpy Punter hurling the ball on the ground in disgust after catching a Canadian batsman; annoyed at his younger colleague Steve Smith for rushing in for the same catch. Now, neither the batsman nor his team were likely to derail Aussie world cup campaign. Perhaps, Ponting’s grumpiness reveals the stress he and his team may be feeling in this world cup campaign? May be all is not that well within the team?? However, the surprise was when Ponting offered an apology in an interview for his behavior, after the game! I did look for the morning Sun in the west!! While Aussies have been the only team to win all of their games so far, they do not look that dominant as in previous editions of the world cup. They were lucky to escape spin-test against SL due to rain. They will be tested tonight against Pakistan. Aussie batsmen have struggled to put up runs which is clear from the fact that not a single batsman, on these batting friendly wickets, has been able to post a three-figure mark so far. Countries like Netherlands and Ireland have batsmen who have got tons, but no Australian!! Now that IS a surprise.

Really this world cup is the most open we have seen for a long long time. Hard to predict who will be able to wrap their hands around this trophy on 2nd April. And that is good to see. Any one from South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia or even England could be holding the trophy ….could feel like an April Fool joke, a day late!!

Is this World Cup about minnows bashing?

On By deepozIn Archive 2014-20102 Comments

Long awaited ICC World Cup has begun and results have been going as per seedings…so far. Meaning all the minnows so far have been bashed. And in some case, have been reminded about their status in no uncertain terms, as well. Perhaps Veeru’s emotions boiled over after his terrific innings against Bangladeshis; even though Indian win by no means was a washout. At 182/2 off ~30 overs only, Bangladeshis were in the scrap. To think of a cricket game as a revenge is a bit too much, but for those who suffered 4 years back at Port of Spain, the kind of back lash from the fans and everyone else, that you see only in India, it must have felt like redemption. If that defeat in the Caribbean was a motivation to play well, Indians succeeded. However, World Cups are more about proving you are a champion side rather than an ego trip. Having said that, Veeru is one of the very few players on the international circuit whose uttering on cricket and especially his opponents, have any thing  to do with ego. He talks as he bats….you see’em, you hit’em!! I would love to see Veeru continue with what he has begun. The way in which he was batting, he seemed to be in the zone to go past the double hundred mark. He will have plenty of opportunities in next 6 weeks to do so. Perhaps, this world cup is one for him. For too long, this mercurial player has remained in the shadows, in the ODIs. Time for him to stamp his authority in this format as well…

Three other games involving lower ranked teams produced disastrous results for the minnows. Only Zimbabwe gave a good account of themselves in the field; though they could not come even close to a modest Australian total. That is the problem with minnows. they will get caught out in either bowling or batting. And with the subcontinent wickets largely being batsman friendly, if their batting fails, they have no chance to remain competitive. The results have started the on-again off-again debate on whether to include associate member teams in the premier event like 50 over World Cup. Indeed, some feel even some of the regular test playing nations are not worthy of this honour!! Much as it has generated the brouhaha from ICC membership, there is a lot of truth in what Ricki Ponting has said. Premier tournaments are more about finding who is best rather than providing an opportunity for minnows to show how far they have progressed. There are other ways to do so. I would not use the arguments like: it is disheartening for lower ranked teams to loose massively or they hardly learn anything from such games etc. I think these arguments are patronising. Minnows need opportunity, not sympathy. One learns more about one’s capabilities from defeats.

In fact, I agree with Punter that it is best to restrict the number of participants to 8 rather than full membership of 10 nations (Zimbabwe is still a full member). If ICC goes with only 8 teams it won’t be anything new. Not every country playing Soccer gets a shot at the title and same is true for field hockey. Accordingly, out of 10 full members any two from last 4 ranked will miss out. To decide this, last 4 full member teams (ranked 7,8,9 and 10) will participate in a 10 team qualifying tournament, made up of 6 best Associate teams. Here is the opportunity for the minnows to play against weaker of the full member sides and knock them out of the main draw.

The way I see, the World Cup program can be divided in three stages:

First, a league phase where all 8 teams to play each other. At the end of league phase last two teams (no. 7 & 8) will be eliminated.

Second, teams 1 to 6 will then play in play-offs to determine semi final berths. This can be based upon old McIntyre 6 system used in AFL (Australian Rules Football League). Basically there will be three games: 

Game A 4 V 5  
Game B 3 V 6
Game C 1 V 2

From Game C (1 or 2) winner will get an opportunity to play against lowest ranked winner of Games A and B, while looser will play the highest ranked winner from games A & B. This allows both top ranked teams a certainty of a place in semi-finals while still giving 2 extra teams (no. 5 & 6) an additional chance to go to knock-out stage.

Finally, a knock out stage will determine the eventual winner.

This will provide each participating team sufficient opportunity to pick up form in the seven league games they will play. The beauty of this is, top ranked teams may play each other three times (once in league phase, once in play-offs and possibly in the finals) during the tournament. I see this scheme better than best of three finals between finalists. Total number of games in the comp will be 21 games for league phase, 3 play offs, 2 semis and one final = 27 games. This should be finished in 5 weeks with majority of games producing competitive cricket that should make the spectators, players and sponsors equally happy.

Sure, minnows have a role to play in the globalisation of the game, but through performance rather than quota system. The fact of life is, if you get an undeserved opportunity and get thrashing, it will neither translate into improved performance nor generate interest in the sport within that country. One-off upsets have not propelled the protagonists to higher level. India V Bangladesh’s game in this world cup is a proof of that.