Tuesday 22 March 2011

Way to go all of you

Well with the first round of the 10th edition of the ICC cricket world cup coming to an end, there has rarely been any sort of thrill with the initial stages of the tournament filled with matches involving mostly the minnow nations which took over two weeks of time. Excluding that also, the thrill could not get bigger with teams like South Africa and New Zealand giving a merciless thrashing to teams like Bangladesh, Holland, Kenya etc and stand nowhere when it came to stronger teams like England and Sri Lanka. So was the case with England and India.

Some interesting games that took away everyone's breath was the one between England and Ireland and the one involving India and South Africa. Full marks to South Africa and Ireland for coming from nowhere and ending up victorious in the games against England and India respectively. India were at one stage 268/1 from 38 overs indicating a 400+ total against South Africa and on the other hand, Ireland were at one stage 111/5 chasing 326. Putting it simple, England completely messed up their games against the minnows. And then they had a tie against India and a win against the Proteas.

That balances the equation though they lost their must win games against Bangladesh and Ireland and had a tough time against the Netherlands. Another match that needs a consideration is the one between New Zealand and Pakistan where 92 runs were scored off the last 4.2 overs with Ross Taylor doing all the damage. Had it not been for that game, Pakistan would have come out with a 100% success rate. So was the case for Sri Lanka if not for the game against Pakistan which they lost by 10 runs. But, X-factor lies in the abandoned match against Australia.

So, with that there has never been a team with a 100% success rate like it happened in the last two editions with Australia sweeping all the opponents it came across. Australia was unlucky not to have faced the Proteas in the 2003 edition and India & Pakistan in the 2007 edition. But, that is a totally different issue here. Coming to the current edition, sufferers have been India with a loss to South Africa and a tie against England, South Africa with a loss to England and finally New Zealand with a loss to Australia and Sri Lanka. Unofficially, all gates are closed for West Indies.

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