West Indies Vs South Africa, Super Eights

South Africa kicked West Indies out of the world cup. We have one question for Brian Lara after this defeat: What was the deal with the last powerplay? Why didn't Lara take the third powerplay? Did he forget? was it intentional? or was he hoping that the umpires would forget? Whatever the case might be, the way WI played, they did not deserve to get ahead in this tournament. Their game, barring the game against Pakistan, has been very insipid. The team has been playing very bad cricket. They knew going into this game that this was a make or break game for them. If that doesn't inspire a team to pick it up a notch then the team doesn't deserve to win.

However insipid WI played, AB DeVilliers played an inspired knock and in the process hit his first ODI century. More importantly, from S. African point of view, batted himself into form. In a space of 14 balls, AB scored about 50 runs (when he went from somewhere in his nineties to 144). It was a brilliant batting display and he knocked the stuffing out the West Indian bowling attack. The knock against SA is that they play a very formulaic brand of cricket and that their cricket lacks flairs. But this in this match, SA's batting display was all about flair. It had a very unkallisque like batting from Kallis who hit another half century (81 runs in 86 balls). Seems like all the criticism seems to have gotten under the big man's skin.

There is not much to say about West Indian batting. Chris Gayle flattered to deceive, Lara failed, Chanderpaul failed, Sarwan played the 'Captain on the sinking ship's deck' even though he is not the Captain, and that was that.

The match was over by the time SA's innings ended. A very one-sided match and a boring one too. Andre Nel was not dropped despite our recommendation. South Africa is going to pay for that. Soon.

West Indies Vs Sri Lanka, Super Eights

Ah, so that's what a player with a lot of experience brings to the table. Batting sensibly when the conditions are unfavorable and then picking an opportune time to have a go at the bowlers. Sanath Jayasuriya did all this and much more in Sri Lanka's drubbing of West Indies.

Jayasuriya's knock was fantastic. Under helpful conditions, the WI bowlers did a good job of not giving him any room to play his shots. Jayasuriya had to bide his time patiently - that he did admirably and it wasn't till the 17th over that he finally started going after the bowlers. It was a great batting display which we hope the Indian cricket stars caught on TV. They could learn a thing or two.

We've said this before and will probably say it again: SL and NZ are the only teams that are capable of beating Australia. This match further confirms our belief. SL, after a very slow start, went on to make 303 in their 50 overs. For WI to stand a chance, Gayle and Lara had to fire. They didn't and the match was lost.

We never thought that the WI team had any chance of winning the world cup but we are amazed at how they are unravelling. They can't even claim that pressure is playing a part because it seems like no one in the WI really cares about how Lara and his boys fare. It is sad that all is not well with team. They didn't look all that happy out in the field. To be fair, it very well could be because Jayasuriya was kicking their collective arses.

WI and England remind us of the Indian team. They have the same uncertainty about them. In terms of drama, the match between WI and England will be a classic. This match will see-saw several times with each team trying to lose and finally the undeserving side will win. We are marking our calendar for that match: April 21. By that time, both teams will probably not stand of chance of making it to the semi-final. That should add to the drama.

As of today, our picks for the semifinal are: Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. Tomorrow, its the black caps turn to teach Bangladesh a cricket lesson. We will go out on a limb and say NZ will beat Bangladesh. Any takers?

West Indies Vs New Zealand, Super Eights

Despite the loss of Lou Vincent, New Zealand looked formidable beating West Indies easily in their Super Eight match. We are penciling in NZ for a semi-final berth. They already have 4 points (2 from the preliminary round and 2 for beating WI) and are assured of 4 more when they play Bangladesh and Ireland. That’s 8 points and it will be enough for a semi-final berth.

Despite Shane Bond, Jacob Oram, and the steady Vettori, NZ’s strength lies in their batting depth. With Styris and McMillan in the form of their life and Jacob Oram and McCullum behind them, they have one of the strongest batting line-ups in the tournament.

Like we mentioned before, we see Sri Lanka and New Zealand as the only two teams which can beat Australia hence we are rooting for them wholeheartedly. On the other hand, West Indian batting needs to regroup. Their bowlers are doing an okay job but their batting has been below average.

Lara is not exactly setting stadiums on fire. He needs to cut out the cute shots and play like Lara we all know. Gayle is doing a Sehwag and Chanderpaul can’t seem to get out of his rut. If the big three don’t play well, West Indies ends up losing. Wait, we could have said the same thing of the Indian team. If anyone is wondering, that was not a compliment to the Windies.

We were astonished to see West Indies fall into the trap India does all the time: pack a side with batsmen and pray while bowling. How many times must we shout this: A TEAM NEEDS BOWLERS TO WIN MATCHES. The surprising thing was they dropped Jerome Taylor and picked up a very inexperienced batsman in L Simmons. Who was the genius behind that selection?

Good to know that though India is out of the tournament, its spirit lives on in the West Indian side. If they continue to play this way, Bangladesh will win two of their Super Eight matches. That will make us very happy.

West Indies Vs Australia, Super Eights

The village idiot has struck a rich vein of form and is in danger of becoming an idiot-savant. Who is to blame for this travesty? Daniel Vettori, that's who. Why? Because Hayden was out of form and was one match away from being dropped when Vettori dropped Hayden (score: 0) in the CB Series. Hayden then went on to make a century which got him into the world cup squad and the rest, as they say, is history. Daniel Vettori is a moron.

Hayden's batting will never be considered beautiful but it is extremely effective. Hayden is so dumb that he doesn't know it's better to be beautiful than to be effective. Hayden is not one of the sweet timers of the ball but he glosses over his timing deficiencies with the power he brings to the crease.

Hayden after a very slow start went to hit another century (158 in 143 balls) and powered Australia to yet another 300 plus score (322 in 50 overs). He was helped with nice cameos from Ponting, Clarke and Watson.

The rest of the match got rained out so West Indies will begin their chase tomorrow. Luckily they still have the full 50 overs but unluckily their target is a whopping 322. West Indies desperately needs a Lara special to chase this total down.

We will update this post after the West Indian innings tomorrow.

Update:03/28/2007
For West Indies to win this game, Lara needed to play one of his very special knocks. He did to a certain extent but it was not long enough and it was not special enough. Gayle is in awful form. Whatever happened to the destroyer of bowlers? He seems shrouded in doubt and not batting well.

Long story short, West Indies lost to Australia. Will someone please beat Australia? Once again, Australia is looking like a Juggernaut.

West Indies Vs Ireland, Group D

We didn't see this match. We were too wrapped up in the India-Sri Lanka match. The scorecard shows that the Windies didn't have too many problems going into the Super 8's with 2 bonus points. Ireland is through too - thanks to their upset win against Pakistan. Good for them.

Either Bangladesh or Ireland will take the 8th spot in the Super 8's. No, that's not true. England can lose to anybody on their off day. Now that India and Pakistan are not in, it is England's responsibility to play tension filled matches against the underdogs.

West Indies Vs Zimbabwe, Group D

We didn't see this match so we won't have any pithy comments or astute observations to make. That not true, we do have one very astute observation to make - West Indies is through to the Super 8's. Are you blinded by our brilliance? Do not be afraid, you are not alone. It happens all the time.

Here is the match report and the scorecard if you want to know mundane and self evident things.

West Indies Vs Pakistan, Group D

The world cup is of to a rollicking start with the West Indies beating Pakistan by 54 runs. Both teams have mercurial temperament and are consistently inconsistent. Both teams can beat anybody on their good days and could lose to any team on their bad days.

On this particular day, Pakistan won the toss and asked the Windies to bat. The Windies then proceeded to make heavy weather of it. The Pakistani bowling was pretty good for the most part. Samuels has been in pretty good form and once again he played a solid innings in the middle overs to stabilize the West Indian innings with Lara. Though at the innings break everyone was talking about how the Windies needed about 30 more runs, the fact that they got to 241 in the first place was due to a fantastic cameo from Dwayne Smith. Smith hit a rapid fire 32 from 15 balls and saw the Windies to a defensible total. The West Indians scored about 58 runs in the last 5 overs.

Pakistan's innings started off with a bang (a huge six by Imran Nazir) and ended in a whimper. Nazir, Hafeez and Younis Khan (who played a terrible shot) fell in quick order. Though Inzi and Yousuf built a partnership, it wasn't enough and they didn't get a chance to free their arms after getting all set. Their fall hastened Pakistan's demise. Shoaib Malik played a good innings but the result was not in any doubt by that time. Windies bowled really well. They stuck to their line and length and were electric in the field. Bravo's caught and bowled wicket of Umar Gul was just fantastic. In contrast to this Pakistan's fielding was bad. Younis Khan dropped a catch of Sarwan of the very first ball. Sarwan went on to make 49 runs.

The West Indians exposed every chink in Pakistan's armour. Pakistan's weakest link - Rana Naved -was targeted for 49 runs. The Pakistani opening pair wickets were captured quickly and that put a lot of pressure on the middle order. Pakistan did not do itself any favors either. Pakistan's best bowler in the match, Umar Gul, did not complete his 10 over quota. Asked about Pakistan's opening pair problems, we were flabbergasted to hear Inzi say that they were mixing and matching to see what their best pair would be. No Inzi. You don't "mix and match" openers in the world cup to see who your best opening pair is. You do that before the world cup starts.

The presence of all-rounders in the one-day team serves Pakistan well. So, it was strange to see that they left out Azhar Mahmood but included Rana Naved. Rana Naved then proceeded to have a horrendous day in the field. It was also very surprising to see that Sami was not in the team. Inzi and Yousuf eschewed pushing for singles. Inzi is not known for his running between the wickets but there were several instances where they missed out on easy runs because they refused to run hard. Because they missed out on easy runs, they (Inzi and Yousuf) had to go for the big hits. This cost Yousuf his wicket after he was well set.

However, all is not lost for Pakistan. Afridi will be back in the team soon and that should bolster their batting and bowling a little bit. They could drop Danish Kaneria (who had a disappointing day) since Hafeez, Malik, and Afridi would serve as the spin option and play a batsman or a bowler. They should also drop Rana Naved for Azhar Mahmood or Sami. Pakistan will make the super 8 and though this loss hurts, they still remain in contention.

This win should give the West Indies confidence and that might be a problem. West Indies does not deal with confidence well. Their 'confidence' almost always becomes 'over confidence' and they implode spectacularly. Lara's job as the captain is to see that they don't lapse into over confidence for the coming matches.

India Crushes West Indies

We want to point out that we could have said "India Decimates West Indies" but that would have been wrong. For, 'decimating' means to select by lot and kill every 10th person. Used in the cricketing sense, that would mean getting only one out of ten players out. Which was not the case in today's match.

India bowled out West Indies. All ten of them. For only 85 runs. So, that was good.

What was not good? Sehwag getting out for a duck was not good and Pathan's bowling rhythm was not good.

Pathan's bowling figures (6 overs, 25 runs and 3 wickets) are deceiving. When a team is all out for 85 runs and a bowler gives away 25 of those runs at 4 an over, it is not a good sign. One might say 'who cares? he got 3 wickets!'. That's true but it is important to know how he got those wickets. For example, the scorecard will show that Lara was c&b Pathan. Do you know what happened, my dear readers?

Pathan got Lara's wicket by his pace - or rather, lack of it - here is how Cricinfo describes that ball:

"Pathan, who struggled getting the ball across in the first over, pitched his final delivery almost in the middle of the track. Lara shaped to pull and was surprised by the lack of pace as the ball stopped on him. Unable to react, he merely swatted it back at the equally surprised bowler"

Not only that, Pathan's bowling speed was abysmal. Most of his balls were around 70 mph. Just imagine his slower ball at this pace. He is in the danger of becoming India's Chris Harris. Not that there is anything wrong with it. No, really.

So, of the three questions India needed answers for, two remain unanswered. One question has been answered, in our opinion.

If we may digress: of course it is our opinion. Why have a blog otherwise? Then, why do we feel the need to justify statements by tagging 'in our opinion' at the end? Maybe we are not confident about what we said and hence the need for qualification. Anyway, the good news is that, from now on you won't see the phrase 'in our opinion' in our blog. If you disagree with what we have to say, you will realize much later (because, we are ahead of our times) that you were wrong.

Where were we?...yes...One question has been answered. Robin Uthappa proved that he has some 'little gray matter' in his head. Maybe not as much as the little Belgian but enough to play sensible cricket. His batting was good. He deserves to be in the playing eleven and it is hard to see how he can be kept out.

Though Karthick played well, it is very hard to see him playing in the world cup barring injuries to other players. Munaf Patel booked his spot in the playing eleven and again, it is very hard to see Sreesanth in the playing eleven barring injuries.

West Indies

One of our good friends recently regaled us with stories of their trip to the Caribbean (Dr. S: Salute) and then we came across this story and this article. It is quite amazing that so many great cricketers have come from such a small landmass. Wonder how many Richards', Lara's, and Holding's have been lost to other sports.

This is a sad state of affairs. WICB, plase get your house in order before all your young men stop playing cricket.

This is a great website to learn more about the cricket politics in the Islands. As always, use caution and don't take everything in these "series of tubes" for granted.