Afghanistan beat Scotland in a low-scoring but thrilling game yesterday to register its first World Cup win. Scotland batted first and once again its batsmen failed to put up a decent score. They scored 210 all out in their 50 overs, better than their previous outings of 142 and 184 but nowhere near the score that would give their bowlers some room. Afghanistan got off to a decent start with 42/0 but a middle order collapse saw them reeling at 97/7 before Samiullah Shenwari stabilized the innings and almost single-handedly took them to 192 before getting out for 96 and leaving them tantalizingly close at 192/9. So they still needed 19 runs to win off 19 balls with only one wicket left. But Shapoor Zadran, who had earlier shone as a bowler, saw them safely through with just three balls to spare
[Read more…]

If the current cricket World Cup has demonstrated something, it is that I am absolutely terrible at predicting outcomes. You can bet against me and win each time. For yesterday’s games, I predicted that both Sri Lanka and South Africa would have easy wins over Afghanistan and India respectively and what happens? Afghanistan almost pulled off a historic victory and India simply hammered South Africa, getting them out for 177 in just 40.2 overs after scoring 307/7. And let’s not even talk about my predicted dark horse team Pakistan struggling to avoid missing qualifying for the quarterfinals.
[Read more…]

In yesterday’s game, West Indies convincingly beat Pakistan, defying my prediction that Pakistan would win. Batting first, WI got off to a lackluster start but solid late order batting, combined with poor Pakistan fielding that saw several dropped catches, enabled them to end up with a good score of 310 for 6.
[Read more…]

Yesterday’s match between England and New Zealand turned into a rout with England batting first and being dismissed for a paltry 123 off 33.2 overs, thus earning the dubious distinction of having the lowest score and batting for the fewest overs so far in the tournament. While I had predicted that England would not win this tournament, this performance was far worse than even I expected and can only be described as an utter humiliation. New Zealand, on the other hand, cemented their reputation as the team to watch in this tournament.
[Read more…]

This cricket World Cup has seen some fine performances by teams that are low-ranked. In addition to Ireland beating West Indies, we saw Scotland making New Zealand work hard for their win. Scotland was dismissed for only 142 in 36.2 overs, setting NZ up for an easy win. But NZ, showing an uncharacteristically cavalier attitude perhaps because they faced such an low target, lost seven wickets before reaching the score in 24.5 overs.
[Read more…]

The first upset win of the tournament came yesterday when Ireland defeated West Indies. The West Indies batted first and the game followed the same pattern as the previous four matches with the first team scoring 300 or more runs. In the other games, the chasing teams all failed to exceed the score but in this case, Ireland proved well up to the challenge of the WI total of 304/7 and reached it comfortably in 46 overs with four wickets in hand.
[Read more…]

Yesterday’s two games ended up with the expected results of the favorites winning, South Africa beating Zimbabwe and India beating Pakistan.
[Read more…]

Back in the day’s of my childhood, air travel was not the norm and cricketers used to travel to other countries by ship. Sri Lanka was fortunate in that it was a convenient port of call for ships that were traversing the Indian Ocean so those carrying the English, Australian, and West Indies teams would stop for a day in Colombo on their way to and from Australia. Unlike the other cricket playing nations, the West Indies team was not made up of players from a single nation but from a confederation of 15 English-speaking countries in the Caribbean.
[Read more…]