Australia-England
Pietersen has to be the most fearless batsman in the world today. You have to give credit to his courage. Not many people would play the same shot against the same bowler who cracked your ribs. But Pietersen is different. He shimmied down the track and casually flicked McGrath to mid-wicket. The temerity of the the shot was mind boggling and the execution near perfect. But the most vital moment of the game came during the English innings. Ponting delayed the third Power Play yet again and was well rewarded. I thought that the gamble would fail poorly but his bowlers did not let him down. Shaun Tait brought them back into the match and the wily old fox McGrath bowled like a dream during the death. It was as lesson of how to bowl to a field that has been set. With both fine leg and third man up, he had no choice but to bowl full and straight. Six balls all full. Here is the cricinfo excerpt of the 48th over of the innings.
And to think that he is playing his last tournament. Phew. Aussies chased well and once Ponting had his eye in, with their long and powerful batting line up, they would never be troubled.
47.1 McGrath to Pietersen, 1 run, and there's his hundred. Another full toss bunged down the ground. Pietersen skips through for a single, and jumps in delight - pumping his fist and roaring his pleasure. That's his slowest one-day hundred. Time to kick on now Around the wicket to Nixon; Gilchrist up to the stumps 47.2 McGrath to Nixon, no run, and he plays and misses 47.3 McGrath to Nixon, 1 run, ah, good play from Nixon, shuffling around his crease like a man with ants in his jockstrap, putting McGrath off his line before working it to leg 47.4 McGrath to Pietersen, no run, ooh here we go! Pietersen takes a step outside leg, tries to crack McGrath over his head but can only hammer it back to him McGrath is nearly thrown backwards with the force of the shot 47.5 McGrath to Pietersen, 1 run, brilliant bowling. Full and straight, Pietersen steps a mile outside his leg stump trying to whack him down the ground but can't time it Gnasher informs us England have added just 70 since the 30th over Around the wicket to Nixon 47.6 McGrath to Nixon, no run, and again Nixon plays and misses
The English commentators - Ian Botham and Mike Atherton are the most arrogant and partisan commentators one can encounter. They believe that this English team is the best in the world. Against Sri Lanka, Botham said that 235 cannot be defended. Against Australia, they elevated Bell, Bopara and Nixon to ODI masters. Very much like how the Indian commentators talk about their team. I have no problems with patriotism, but commentary box is not the place to show it. One needs an unbiased view of the proceedings and unfortunately these blokes cannot do that.
Another very interesting thing that came to my mind during the match was the way Pietersen played to get the last 15 odd runs to his century. He just tuk-tuked his way to a 100 when the need of the hour was to get on with it. It cost England about 20 runs which could have made it slightly tougher for the Aussies. The worst part was that even the commentators justified his approach. When Mike Atherton was asked should he open out or should he look for his century. Mike said, he should look for his century (sic).
New Zealand - Sri Lanka
Every one has a bad day. I suppose this was New Zealand's bad day. They were truly mauled by the Lankans. The scoreboard read 6/2 in 7 overs. Vaas just did not allow the Kiwis to settle down. I did think that Jayawardane missed a trick by removing Fernando and putting Maharoof in. That just let the pressure off the Kiwis. Scott Styris did try to make a match of it but unfortunately Jayasuriya and Sangakara were too smart while chasing. Fleming did however limit the damage to their net run rate though, waiting till the 46th over before taking the third Power Play.
The most irritating part about this World Cup is not that you can see only one innings if you want to go to the office the next day, but to check on the score the next morning when you turn the telly on, you encounter monkeys on NDTV and chimps on CNN-IBN. Kris Srikanth seems to have lost it. He goes hysterical like the rest of the CNN-IBN crew and just blabbers on. Then there is the irritating sports editor of theirs who cannot speak without putting some numbers on the screen. On NDTV, its not very different, Navjot Sidhu and Ajay Jadeja just muck up the whole thing. They introduce Jadeja as a former India captain - ya right 20 odd matches in 7 years mainly because of Azhar or Sachin being injured is captaincy. The most irritating part was when he said the way Scott Styris played to get his 100 was stupid and was selfish. His claim was that once you are 20 odd for 4 then just sitting there and waiting for a some time for the pitch to ease off was going to do no good. They should have gone out and played their shots because they were just fighting a losing cause anyways. Perhaps he has not watched any of the great Aussie escapes especially this one.
New Zealand - South Africa
I don't like the looks of this particular South African team. They are not mentally strong, cannot think on their feet and do not have variety in their bowling attack. They would again get knocked out in the semis and this time it would neither be a tie nor the rain so that they don't drown the town with their tears begging for sympathy. To say that their leader is stupid would be an understatement. Graeme Smith is a good batsman but worse that Bishen Bedi, Navjot Sidhu and Harbhajan Singh combined. Just like the rest of them, he suffers from an acute case of verbal diarrhoea and always ends up with egg on his face. He has rubbed most of his team mates the wrong way. After their public admonition, Pollock has lost all his confidence and Kallis bats as if he wants the double his career strike rate. As for the actual match, NZ did to South Africa what Sri Lanka did to them. In this match too, after 7 overs in the first innings, the score was 6/2.
Well the final week of the Super 6s are here. Yesterday's result means that Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka are through with one spot to play for and the final juggling to avoid Aussies as the semifinal opponent. New Zealand would avoid them and Sri Lanka are safe as they have a game against the Irish to manipulate their spot. For the last place I guess it would come down to the England vs South Africa match. Its going to be on net run rate this time too and with the South African luck, they may miss the boat just yet.
1 comment:
well world cup feels a little lame and too overstretched!
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