World Cup, fourth warm-ups: live discussion

I won’t allow myself to make any predictions at this stage. I prefer to believe in the power of prayer and the fact that well-timed toilet-breaks bring wickets. Plus, I have a nasty case of foot and keyboard/mouth disease. Let’s not even mention Bell being on the front cover of Playfair 2007. Ooops!

I totally second Wraye. My only worry, at this point is that my blog host is down for maintenance for the whole weekend, such a gap in blogging could potentially be a bad omen for the lads, but I will continue hoping, and praying, and of course, the well-timed-toilet breaks ought to come-in-handy as well. All hail the fat lady that sings.

Grrr! Cricinfo didn’t update for ages and then jump from 103/1 to 115/1. Be grateful you can see the cricket, Zainy, I have nothing at all apart from CI! Boo hoo.

Must calm down now, Vaughany and Bell have their 50’s and it’s only a warm up game. The boys are merely “practising”, right?

Wow! Who would have believed INdia could bowl so well… even Irfan Pathan has picked up wickets! Incredible performance. Hope the batters can measure up!

West Indies – Kind of puts Viv Richards back in his place doesn’t it?

South Africa – Maybe they should have played on cement? Batsmen I tell you… gotta have true bounce and no swing and no seam to be happy…

New Zealand – Strong platform? And it’s 30/0 after 10? Oh yes, there was that Bangladesh game…

England – So Hoggy CAN bowl a bit. And Vaughn can bat a bit. I am extremely disappointed in Flintoff these days. He’s supposed to be a world beater and I was really warming up to him after Ashes 2005. And that’s saying a lot coming from an Aussie. What is up with him? Seriously.

Agreed, Michael, Flintoff cannot bat to save himself these days. And all the commentators still think he’s going to save the world every time he comes to the crease. He gets a much gentler ride than most.

But Vaughan was looking sharp — sharp enough for McGrath to have words with him! Let’s just hope he hasn’t ripped anything (touches wood). Vaughan and Bell were the ONLY good things about that innings.

In my constant search for a live scorecard to watch, I found myself at The Guardian who claims they have a snazzy desktop scorecard. It’s a little better, it does show England is 140/4 after 31 overs with Collingwood on 2 and Flintoff on 4.

However the text on the left paints the story.

“Preamble Hello. England collapsed from 122 for 1 to 197 all out and will be losing this match shortly.”

A bit harsh the brits, aren’t they?

BTW – I *am* buying a subscription to watch the games via willow.tv and recommend it to anyone who can get it. I watched the entire Ashes and ODI series through willow.tv and was impressed with the feed most of the time. They did have moments of poor performance, and like every good tech company blamed my connection. Despite speakeasy.net/speedtest telling me that my connection was above 4mb. *sigh*

McGrath has words with everybody though… And while it smacks of arrogance, it’s so vital to have a fast bowler with snarl. Batsmen are dominating the game; so much so that I feel the bowlers should be aiming to shake them up a lot more and be free to have “words” and intimidate them. I also think bowlers should be allowed to give the batsman a send off. The sport is really in danger of becoming a pansy affair.

I like Bell. I hate to admit that. He was destroyed in Ashes 05 and showed a lot of grit in 06/07. Though I don’t like Collingwood. I would have preferred to see Graham Thorpe one more time in Collingwood’s place.

The one exciting finish for the day… Comon New Zealand!

World Cup Cricket Final 2007 is between ?

The World Cup Cricket 2007 has started without a clear favourite to win the cup. Thanks to the recent debacle of Australia. Which two teams will reach the final ?. Any team which reaches the semi final has a chance to win the cup. Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties, which is the beauty of the game. My choice for the world cup semi finals are Australia, New zealand, West indies and India.

If that was Australia A, Michael, then Australia can glory in its Ashes whitewash over England A. And I think you’ll find the Chappell-Hadlee series is a small but regular part of the cricket schedule honouring two great cricketing families and the trans-Tasman rivalry. If Australia have overbooked themselves elsewhere, you can’t blame the series in NZ. Or sneer at it, as Gilchrist did, and got roundly censured for it.

Oh, I guess that means if you take Lee out of the equation, then we proved mightily that the Aussies can’t bowl in NZ conditions.

The Chappell/Hadlee series has been agreed on by both countries as a regular fixture. If Australia then turns round and sets up a ludicrously long CB series — and everyone, I think, except England, thought it was ludicrously long — that’s not NZ’s fault.