The Cricket World Cup Thread

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 20 Feb 2011 12:02

Mahendra wrote:AoA! sabse pehle youngistani babaji ka shukar!

Tamang · Post by **Tamang** » 20 Feb 2011 12:43

India TV's WC coverage

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 20 Feb 2011 12:58

Guys,

Help me out. I will be in Bangalore on business in time for the India Vs Ireland match. Nothing like watching a match at the KSCA stadium (oh, those high school/college memories

), and I did some googling to find out where I can buy tickets. Here is what I found:

http://www.icccwc2011.kyazoonga.com/tickets/index/

Is this really the official web site. Hope nothing fake about it

. Please advice.

suvod · Post by **suvod** » 20 Feb 2011 14:10

CRams>> This is the official website for tickets. has some good options like checking the view from your chosen seat also.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 20 Feb 2011 16:05

The UDRS thingie in the world cup is absolutely fit for nothing, especially for snicks. Two referrals for caught behind and neither of them were anywhere close to being enough to judge either this way or that. Replays were too fast (dont they have ultra slo-mo?). No hot spot either since the aussies were pakis. I wonder why no snicko either. Farce of the highest order really. Useful maybe to check for no-balls.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 20 Feb 2011 16:07

Bade wrote:See Tanaji misquoted Veeru here. If people want to support the Indian team here it better be all in it, off day for one or not. Just high lighting the sensitive nature of such misquotes.

All I quoted was what Cricinfo said. If I dont have access to live telecasts, thats the best one can do eh?

Comparing appam and God is ridiculous on many levels, but what the heck, its a free country.

Bade wrote: It is WC after all and the players are representing India here and not their IPL paymasters or brand ambassadors. So maybe the sensitivity in this case. Otherwise I am fine with regular banter and pulling leg etc based on even parochial lines within limits, of course.

From the very little I saw of this match online, it was clear that Sree was really out of his usual self and not for not trying hard. No antics were recorded at least. So give him a break. He is not known for any ODI performances. So is a step in for Praveen's absence for whatever reasons. I am sure if there was another option Dhoni would have picked another.

Now. now, who is talking about parochial lines here? Trying to lay IEDs eh?

Dhoni doesnt like Sreesanth for the reasons I mentioned earlier, and he is to blame for at least 2-3 of them. Like it or not, these days teams play percentage cricket, they follow predetermined plans that are most likely to yield favourable results. This is especially true for the Indian bowling department that does not have any express stars like Brett Lee or Steyn. So, anyone trying fancy lines that yield runs and no wickets is going to be frowned upon. Bhajji gets latitude but that is because he has shown the relevant performance. Even Zak bowls to a plan, so when Sreesanth starts deviating on his assigned lines, what's a captain to do?

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 20 Feb 2011 16:46

Tanaji

I don't think Appam god is capable of bowling to a plan. He is a maverick, he just runs up and dishes out what he thinks would get him a wicket. Now I know munna scalped 4 yesterday but against better batting sides who would be chasing less than what the BDs let us score yesterday, he would be milked for runs given his predictable line and length.

Appam god swings the ball more than anyone else in the Indian side, he will leak runs but he might get you a few top order batsmen when he consistently swings the ball. It is also a known fact that the ball swings more during the night, Appam god might just a Kallis or Pieterson out in a crunch match, he might just be worth the gamble, given that we are banking on our batting to win every match by batting the opposition out of the match.

Like I said before, Appam god's biggest enemies are the appam god bhaktas. Appam god needs to start believing that it is his prodigious talent that gets him wickets and not his antics which is so much celebrated by the bhaktas. Dhoni's message to him was right but he should not have used a public platform to deliver it, at a certain level it does exhibit a bit of arrogance on Dhoni's part.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 20 Feb 2011 18:02

counting on the canadians to make a match out of it. they certainly do have the firepower for an outside chance.

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 20 Feb 2011 18:37

With all due respect to the organisers this tournament is just too long. Too many chillar teams resulting in too many matches of little or no consequence. I think the chillar teams have been included so that Dawood Bhai and his friends in the ICC( who shall remain unnamed ) can make a meal out of an engineered upset.

Though the Pakroaches won it, the 92 world cup had the best format, it was the darned Kerry Packi's channel 9 tailored rain rule and inclement weather that spoiled the fun. Pawkisan would have been eliminated if their game against England wasn't rained out. India could have beaten Australia and made the semi finals. South Africa could have beaten England and made the finals etc etc. The Indian side in the 92 WC was a good one. It was probably the last world cup where India had the luxury of playing a genuine all rounder.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 20 Feb 2011 19:01

Interesting to note that every SL player has hit a boundary in this match against Canada.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Feb 2011 20:01

bd took nly 300 batting 2nd vs our bowling. Anytime we have to bat 2nd we in danger of having to chase 350 vs a better team. When we bat first must score 300 plus to have a chance.

Tamang · Post by **Tamang** » 20 Feb 2011 20:07

SaiK wrote:Interesting to note that every SL player has hit a boundary in this match against Canada.

Kapugedera did not.

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 20 Feb 2011 21:01

Murali looks out of form to me. His doosras were played with ease by lower order batsmen. Has he lost the touch? I expected more from him in a SL home match against Canada.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 20 Feb 2011 21:08

Mahendra saab, completely agree with you regarding Sreesanth

As for the tournament being too long, true...and the ICC has decided 2015 WC will go back to 10 teams. Lots of associates are complaining...

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 20 Feb 2011 21:28

I agree this format is stupid, I would have preferred 4 groups of 3 each with 2 from each group going into the 2nd round. the 10 team idea is even more stupider.

partha · Post by **partha** » 20 Feb 2011 22:03

Rahul M wrote:I agree this format is stupid, I would have preferred 4 groups of 3 each with 2 from each group going into the 2nd round. the 10 team idea is even more stupider.

Rahulji,
The problem with 4 groups is that teams have very little or no room at all for a "comeback" in the league stage. If a weak team wins against a strong one by fluke, the strong team is almost out of the WC. That's what happened in 2007. India lost 1 match against Bangladesh and with it the dreams of WC. I think the present format is better or even the 2003 format which was similar to this. Teams should get more matches in the 1st stage.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 21 Feb 2011 00:29

The two group format, I think, is to make sure "weaker" teams (read as those who attract less spectators) achieving a single fluke win won't suddenly find themselves in the semis and correspondingly "strong" teams who have a bad day at the office can recover like partha says.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 21 Feb 2011 00:34

Now I am hoping that Ireland beats Bangladesh. Little chance of that happening but I can always hope. A defeat against Ireland will mean a WC exit for BD almost.

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 21 Feb 2011 01:12

Dilbu wrote:Murali looks out of form to me. His doosras were played with ease by lower order batsmen. Has he lost the touch? I expected more from him in a SL home match against Canada.

apparently when murali bowls his doosra, his right hand thumb goes up. apparently sachin figured this out and when asked told sehwag too. sehwag told the media. so now it is out in the open. you see raised thumb, you play for the other one.

murali was might impressed by mendis's doosra which is the carrom ball. carrom ball hides better. but also is a complete finger ball and requires strong fingers, if you put any wrist in your carrom ball, the batsmen can detect it. i bowled offspin* all of last summer. what i ultimately figured, was that the sdre loop, change of pace, tight line are the offspinners best friends for ever.

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 21 Feb 2011 01:51

Shaardula = Anil Kumble?

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 21 Feb 2011 07:49

partha wrote:
Rahul M wrote:I agree this format is stupid, I would have preferred 4 groups of 3 each with 2 from each group going into the 2nd round. the 10 team idea is even more stupider.
Rahulji,
The problem with 4 groups is that teams have very little or no room at all for a "comeback" in the league stage. If a weak team wins against a strong one by fluke, the strong team is almost out of the WC. That's what happened in 2007. India lost 1 match against Bangladesh and with it the dreams of WC. I think the present format is better or even the 2003 format which was similar to this. Teams should get more matches in the 1st stage.

true and this is the reason behind the current format. that said I still think it is stupid, we shouldn't have to endure a long, boring and inevitable group stage just on the outside chance that a top team might be eliminated. fluke or not, if a top team loses against a team far weaker than it, it deserves to go out. it also makes for some uncertainty that's only good for the tournament. if we already know which teams are going to make it to the next stage why even play the group stages ?
in FIFA WC 2002, the defending champions were eliminated in group stage, it might have been bad for the france supporters but it certainly made for an interesting tournament.

a much better format, get the 9 top nations and 3 associates. arrange the 4 groups so that each has 2 top teams and 1 associate. consider rank#9 team as minnows.

Now I am hoping that Ireland beats Bangladesh. Little chance of that happening but I can always hope. A defeat against Ireland will mean a WC exit for BD almost.

nah, quite possible. Ire is their bogey team.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 21 Feb 2011 15:39

The worst of Canadian side is that they picked Balaji Rao as part of thier regular team. This guy used to be a Substitute in the Tamil Nadu team. Imagine this, a guy who was generally a substitute for the TN team is now playing in the World Cup as a regular??

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 21 Feb 2011 17:28

Marten wrote: No gul khilaoing at all! I could've gone in there and given the same amount of runs.

Yeah but in one over onlee

archan · Post by **archan** » 21 Feb 2011 22:08

Last Ind-BD match and all the hype around Sehwag's alleged badmouthedness (mostly in the eyes of BD fans) got me thinking. I decided to look up the stats. First, let us see what actually he did say in early 2010.
Bangladesh an 'ordinary' Test side: Sehwag
He was very clear that he thinks BD is an ordinary test side. Now since we have the luxury of having all records at our fingertips, let us take a look. BD played their first ever test on Nov. 10, 2000. Now let us say, a new test playing nation would need some time to adjust and improve. So how long that time should be, 3 years? 5 years? how about over a decade?
In the last 10+ years, BD has played 68 test matches. They have won only 3 out of those! Link here. So that is a winning percentage of 4.4%
It is not that they have been drawing many matches either. Out of 68, they have lost 59 tests! Link here. That is, 87% of their matches have been out and out losses.
They have drawn 6 matches out of 68, so that is about 9% of matches.
They have played a total of 34 test series. Out of which they have won only 2 series. That is about a 6% winning rate.
Against which teams have they won a test series? First one was Zimbabwe in 2004-2005 and the second one was WI in 2009. The Zimbabwe "series" had only 1 test match which BD won and hence they have a series win. The WI series ( the only time this team has done well) was 2 matches and they won 2-0.
As you see the link you will also see that all their losses have been like 2-0, 3-0 etc. This means BD could not even put up a decent fight in any of the series - could not even manage to win one match!
Further, if you look at their lost matches, you see that they have lost 34 matches by a margin of an innings (+ some runs, of course).
Out of their 59 losses, only 3 have been lost by less than 5 wickets (if we loosely consider a <5 wicket loss as a "close match"). There were:

1 match with a 5 wicket loss.
3 matches with a 7 wicket loss.
3 matches with a 7 wicket loss.
4 matches with a 8 wicket loss.
4 matches with a 9 wicket loss.
2 matches with a 10 wicket loss.
They lost 8 matches while chasing. The margins were 107, 113, 121, 181, 183, 288, 329 and 465 runs in each.
Lets say you are an independent observer. A team that is not ordinary is what? extra ordinary, right?

So what do you call a team that has won only 3 matches out of 68?

a) average (average means, at least as good as many other teams but not exceptional)
b) extra ordinary
c) ordinary

Now why are BD fans running around acting "hurt" when someone actually spoke the truth about this team? he in fact repeated after the last match that he believes that BD have the ability to upset many teams in ODIs but in tests they are ordinary.

During the same time period, the Australian team has won 81 test matches out of 124 and lost 24. That is 65% winning rate and a losing rate of about 19%.
During the same time period, India has won 88 out of 115 tests and lost 27. That makes their winning rate as 76.5% and a losing rate of 23%.

The question that arises is - does the BD team deserve to be a test playing nation? What are the markers that can show that this team in 2011 is a better test team than what it was in the year 2000?

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 21 Feb 2011 22:27

a little snippet about the win against WI, that was the 3 rd rung team because all the first and second XI players were on strike due to a pay dispute with WICB.

also, I think you have missed a number of innings defeats.

archan · Post by **archan** » 21 Feb 2011 22:46

Rahul M wrote:a little snippet about the win against WI, that was the 3 rd rung team because all the first and second XI players were on strike due to a pay dispute with WICB.

also, I think you have missed a number of innings defeats.

ouch, that explains it. I was wondering how the heck did they win against WI!

I counted all the innings defeats from the cricinfo list. By the way, is there a way to export this kind of data into excel sheets? also, anyone know if one can list the tests played, won, lost, data for all teams in a table format from any cricket stats website?

I think their test performance has not been ordinary. It has been poorer than ordinary. Sehwag was generous when he used the word "ordinary". If my home team were to perform like this, I would not have any hesitation in callling them sub-par, undeserving to play at this level. What is this false sense of entitlement that BD fans show? what makes them think they belong in the group of test playing nations? they. along with Zimbabwe should stick to ODIs and T20s until they have enough in them to be able to compete at the test level.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 21 Feb 2011 23:39

archanullah, try cricinfo's statsguru.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 22 Feb 2011 00:29

archan,
in comparison to other teams like say sri lanka during their initial years in test cricket how does bd compare? Sure the amount of test cricket varies, so in a time-bound comparison it might not make absolute sense but it should still give us a good idea of how bd fares against sl.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 22 Feb 2011 01:05

archan wrote: The question that arises is - does the BD team deserve to be a test playing nation? What are the markers that can show that this team in 2011 is a better test team than what it was in the year 2000?

Historically speaking, take the case of Nzl. You can check out how many years they took to score their first win, first series win, first series win abroad, and their overall record. As of now, Nzl is an ok force at home, but far shakier on tour. If BD should be dumped, there is not much of a case for retaining Nzl either. 1 in the sdre bloc goes out, 1 in the tfta bloc goes out to keep company. Game?
Similarly, why are Kenya or Zimbabwe (of now) ODI teams? The problem with doing these calculations is to take a window sufficiently long enough to even out short-term aberrations. Already the game is played in only 10 countries, you take away one because you think that team is too sdre for comfort, then there are sdres among tftas too. The ICC despite all bullshitting wont be game to such decisions.
Look at ICC membership with multiple dicings: seeing the BD moronic fans' viewpoints is not what we should do, they are all pawns. ICC membership should be seen as an extra-judicial metric for Indian strategic interests. Unfortunately, that means taking a small blow on h&d once a while.

archan · Post by **archan** » 22 Feb 2011 02:48

^^ I agree about NZ. They should have been made to sit out a long long while ago. And I also see your point regarding international politics in cricket as well. It might well have been India who has supported BD cricket in the ICC strongly.
However, I love this game as a spectator and I comment on what I like about it and what I don't - without "correcting" for the political objectives. Honestly if team India performs like NZ, I will stop following their game altogether. I would want them to be sitting out and working on their game so they don't shame themselves everywhere they go.
No, one or two BD fans don't rile me up. I am just amazed that people who support a team with a 3/68 win record would be offended at that team being termed ordinary. The records are there for all to see.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 22 Feb 2011 03:16

it's a no brainer that they didn't deserve the test status when they got it but revoking it now would be a retrograde step. they are improving, albeit very slowly. there is merit in the two tier test thing however.

Yayavar · Post by **Yayavar** » 22 Feb 2011 03:34

^^they are improving alright. They did give some anxious moments to Australia in the last tour and India early on in the tour too (though to a much lesser extend).

Yayavar · Post by **Yayavar** » 22 Feb 2011 03:35

The Upar Cut -- enjoyed this ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-856iOohQE

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 22 Feb 2011 06:36

i was reading cricinfo and apparently every time a injun bat got hit the crowd cheered. kohli got hit and they replayed on the big screen on the ground 3 times. and each time the crowd cheered. what is that about? apparently some bangla bat got hit, and the stadium went silent. whats with all the sub current, any one know?

o' archan-ullah lord of the seven forums and 72 goats, you being a bit unfair, no? if they start losing you walk out, lashes be upon me, but isn't that like - he who chases the tails of the winning bull?

archan · Post by **archan** » 22 Feb 2011 06:38

losing without a fight is what I have issues with. Think the Indian team pre-Ganguly, post-Kapil's prime.

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 22 Feb 2011 06:42

@mahendra, i will also play , i will also play. please

mahendra = dhoni?
br admin ramana = bradman?
sachin = tendulkar?
tanaji = ton edgy = sehwag?
shiv = mr. dad = mia dad = miandad?
dileep = vengsarkar?
rahul m = m for maharaj = ganguly or is it dravid?
raja bose = king kong = harbhajan?

negi · Post by **negi** » 22 Feb 2011 06:52

shaardula wrote: raja bose = king kong = harbhajan?

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 22 Feb 2011 08:24

Hey, I DID have the nickname vengsarkar in kaalij, but that is way below the popularity of the other 1007 ones I had.

partha · Post by **partha** » 22 Feb 2011 08:36

Viv Richards profile from Cricinfo
Amazing!

You knew when he was coming. The outgoing batsman would already have disappeared into the pavilion, and the expectation of what was to follow filled the air. Viv kept you waiting... time to ponder. Then he appeared, sauntering, swaggering, arms windmilling slowly. He would take guard, and then, head tilted back slightly and cudding his gum, he would walk a few paces down the pitch to tap it while looking the bowler in the eye. It was calculated menace and magnificent theatre from arguably the most devastating batsman of all time.

How to bowl to him? Get him to the other end, perhaps. Hold your nerve, do not take what might follow as personal. Occasionally he was vulnerable early on if his desire to dominate overwhelmed him. But he had no weakness until his eyesight infinitesimally but inevitably started to let him down and those eye shots became harder.

Sriman · Post by **Sriman** » 22 Feb 2011 09:42