irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Feb 12, 2015 15:24:41 GMT
Is starting this weekend - don't all get too excited mind......
It has to be the most underwhelming of major sport setpieces. It's just so badly organised. It's the tournament the cat dragged in. How on earth can the competition last as long as it does and a month in to the tournament still gfeature games like England v Afghanistan?
It is a ridiculous format. You have an interminable group stage that should be entirely predictable and is in fact designed to mitigate against the major nations getting to the Quarter Finals. This takes a month and basically all you have to do as a big time cricket nation is beat the 3 minnows in your group to qualify. There's then only really 7 meaningful knock out games which should all be very exciting but by the time you get there hardly anyone can bring themselves to care anymore. There's no need for the group stage to be a month long! I get that TV wants games but would it be beyond the pale to play more games involving the minnows the same day - I don't see many people going 's**t I don't get to watch Pakistan vs UAE and Bangladesh vs Australia - why did they make me have to choose?'. Nor can I imagine advertisers being too bothered. It's so stretched out it's ridiculous. Cricket isn't a game where players need a week off between matches and in fact it's better when they don't.
I get that having a limited number of competitive countries is difficult when it comes to structuring a World Cup and you want to give the minnows their day in the sun; Afghanistan for example is a genuinely great story. But surely the ultimate aim of a showpiece sport should to maximise the number of competitive games between the top teams. If you're going to have that long a group stage at least make the group games between the big teams more relevant by getting rid of the Quarter Final Stage and forcing them to finish in the top 2 of their group to go through to the quarters. Instead it's completely conceivable that England could lose all their games against decent sides in the group stages, beat the 3 minnows, win a rain effected Quarter Final, get hammered in the Semi and still claim the tournament was a massive success and a step forward for English cricket. It's just so flawed. An ideal way of doing it would be to have 16 teams playing 2 group stages. So you had a first group stage with groups of 4 - with 2 established countries and 2 minnows in each groups. That gives the minnows at least 3 games, some exposure and a fighting chance of causing an upset. It risks a major nation going out but really if a major nation loses to Zimbabwe/UWE/Scotland then they don't deserve to go through. OK granted Ireland, Bangladesh etc would have a better chance and create 'groups of death' but then, you know, this is supposed to be a competition not a cakewalk. Then you'd have a second group stage with 2 groups of 8 - each play each other once the you have semi-final and final. That way you produce more meaningful games between the top sides and take a lot of the random luck out of it whereby winning 1 Quarter Final game makes you a success. It would be a better tournament - it would have an extra stage and it still wouldn't take as long as the current format! The T20 World Cup has been a roaring success because it has shown you can pack a world class cricket tournament into a fortnight and leave people wanting more; apparently the ICC didn't take note of this.
I am going to be trendy and pick New Zealand to win it but given the final is a month and a half away it's hardly worth making any predictions. England have at least sent our best possible One Day team for once (arguments about KP not withstanding) and look like we have a shot of doing better than usual but that lower middle order, which should be one of our major assets, needs to start firing. They have been woeful in the build-up. We need Morgan, Buttler and Bopara firing if we're going to consistently be posting 300+ which is going to be a minimum in Australian conditions with the current ODI rules.
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jackthegas
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Post by jackthegas on Feb 14, 2015 9:16:22 GMT
Firstly I disagree that England have taken their best squad. They have too many top order batsmen in the squad, hence today's ridiculous decision to send Taylor in at 6. Stokes should have gone instead of Ballance or Taylor as England's reserve lower order batsman. Given Bopara's form Stokes should have played today.
England aren't going to win the World Cup so you're looking for improvement and a clear strategy. Picking a top order batsman who needs time to play himself in at 6, and our bowlers continual reluctance to even try to bowl yorkers at the death is not encouraging. We also continue to be woefully inept at scoring singles. We either try to bash it for 4 or block it. The best players look to knock a good ball for a single and then whack it when it's in their area.
I accept that you can't expect miracles overnight but we have some good young players who have some good attributes and with some good coaching and a sensible strategy I'd expect to see some improvement from the likes of Woakes, Moeen, Taylor, Buttler, Finn and even some of the more experienced players continuing to develop but I see no evidence of this. I'd have more sympathy with the coaches if we were trying to implement a sensible strategy and simply failing to execute it.
We are 73-5. This is the worst start we could possibly have made.
Edit: Speaking of minnows, thank goodness Ireland aren't in our group because I would not be confident at the moment
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Captain Jayho
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Post by Captain Jayho on Feb 14, 2015 9:51:56 GMT
I simply can't watch England play cricket at the moment. When you're living over here it's just too much to take. One dayers are particularly bad because even after all these years we are so woefully inept at the simple things it's just embarrassing. The sooner we bomb out of the tournament the better as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by lostinspace on Feb 14, 2015 12:36:54 GMT
rabbits in headlights come to mind after that display
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Feb 14, 2015 13:09:57 GMT
Firstly I disagree that England have taken their best squad. They have too many top order batsmen in the squad, hence today's ridiculous decision to send Taylor in at 6. Stokes should have gone instead of Ballance or Taylor as England's reserve lower order batsman. Given Bopara's form Stokes should have played today. England aren't going to win the World Cup so you're looking for improvement and a clear strategy. Picking a top order batsman who needs time to play himself in at 6, and our bowlers continual reluctance to even try to bowl yorkers at the death is not encouraging. We also continue to be woefully inept at scoring singles. We either try to bash it for 4 or block it. The best players look to knock a good ball for a single and then whack it when it's in their area. I accept that you can't expect miracles overnight but we have some good young players who have some good attributes and with some good coaching and a sensible strategy I'd expect to see some improvement from the likes of Woakes, Moeen, Taylor, Buttler, Finn and even some of the more experienced players continuing to develop but I see no evidence of this. I'd have more sympathy with the coaches if we were trying to implement a sensible strategy and simply failing to execute it. We are 73-5. This is the worst start we could possibly have made. Edit: Speaking of minnows, thank goodness Ireland aren't in our group because I would not be confident at the moment Ah - so we've made our usual impressive start to the tournament; good job this game is more or less entirely irrelevant to our prospects. Yeah - I see the point on Stokes. I get the impression that he's still in the doghouse for his perceived lack of professionalism and his disasterous run at the start of last summer confirmed the feeling that he needs to go away and think about it for a bit. However, for the balance of the team it would make sense for him to be in there. In truth though, with the exception of the odd one off performance he has underwhelmed internationally so far. The point is at least we're arguing about 1 player and not 6! The decision to put Taylor down the order to accomodate Ballance was ridiculous when you have a number 3 firing like he has been. We always seem 5 years behind the rest of the World tactically at Word Cups. There is now 1 less outfielder for much of the innings - that changes both batting and bowling dynamics and should mean more runs. I think 300+ first innings scores will be the norm in this tournament and that will pile pressure on teams batting 2nd. Both losing teams in the opening games one the toss and bowled; both because they are lacking confidence in their batsman (England cos we're not consistent, Sri Lanka because they don't like NZ seaming batting conditions). Not sure many will be doing that from now on. The point is I struggle to see how England are going to construct an innings to get to 300+ on a regular basis. They seem to be old school in the idea that you bat around the guy who is scoring the runs. That's not how you get to those big scores; you need 4/5 of your top 6 to contribute at a decent lick and you need the lower middle order to fire (which is probably the secret to winning or losing 70% of ODI games). I saw New Zealand's innings and that's how you do it; and I just couldn't see England doing that. On the bowling front I think we have a more fundamental problem. There was a thing on the BBC website showing how bad all our key stats were. Most didn't surprise but the particularly dreadful death overs bowling performance did because in theory you'd think Anderson, Broad etc would be experienced performers. But in reality we're one paced and lacking in variation and so batsmen just sit on that pace and clobber it. We don't have a left armer to change the angle, we don't have someone to take the pace off and we don't have a spinner we really trust in the last 8 Overs. My view is that Darren Gough is the only genuine One Day specialist bowler England has ever produced (and that's because he had to play on tiny club cricket grounds in Yorkshire from an early age where you have to learn variation to avoid being smashed). I don't think English conditions encourage the development of bowlers to mix their lines, lengths, speeds and deliveries. I grant that we try to do this but it doesn't ever seem to come naturally - it's something that is added to a bowlers game when he gets to the Pro level and that's too late. You can be an extremely successful seam bowler in English conditions by bowling a tight consistent line and so there's no real incentive to develop those key variations for the end of an innings. In Asia, on flat low decks the only way seamers ever have any success is be masters of variation of all kinds; in Aus and SA you get value from pure pace that you don't get in England so much. My club has a lot of guys who learned their cricket in Pakistan and I'm struck by how they naturally just bowl a load of variations - changing every ball is just how they bowl. English bowlers are taught to value consistency and only change it if the batsman gets on top of you. That means it's just not a natural process for them and it's difficult to implement at the highest level if it doesn't come to you intuitively. I bet Jimmy Anderson as a youngster very rarely bowled a yorker or a slower ball - in fact he'd have been discouraged from doing so a lot of the time. I think that's a big problem for our chances of developing a top class ODI team. Not sure about Ireland - a lot of people's pick to spring a surprise but they were ghastly in their warm-ups and their big game is first up on Sunday against the Windies. Windies are a shambles but Ireland have not looked much better and I kind of back Windies to pull it all together when it really matters. |
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jackthegas
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Post by jackthegas on Feb 14, 2015 13:38:58 GMT
Yes I think we could have picked a squad of batsmen who, with the right mentality could have got us close to 300. If not Stokes then Bairstow or Roy could have been given a chance. However to do it consistently I think you need more depth to your batting and the best sides have hitters all the way down to number 10. England have Woakes who is reasonable but often undone by genuine pace and spin and then Broad who is pretty much a number 11 now as his batting has regressed so much.
I can see us getting it together batting wise over the next few years but our lack of death bowling is scary. I can't see anyone in county cricket who is really pushing for selection. None of our prospects have really kicked on over the last 5 years. We've produced a clutch of bowlers who seemed to have the right attributes (Meaker,, Shazhad, Mills, Finn, Woakes, Jordan and even Dernbach) and not one of them has kicked on and fully fulfilled their potential. How can Anderson and Broad have spent 10 years in international cricket and not learnt how to bowl competently at the death in ODIs? They've developed skills in test cricket so they are capable of learning. Maybe it's a priority thing.
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bluetornados
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Post by bluetornados on Feb 14, 2015 21:03:44 GMT
England were woeful today, have to question not batting first after winning the toss.
Taylor, Bell, Woakes & Finn can say they did well..the rest were very poor.
20th Feb Pool A: England v New Zealand, Wellington (Westpac Stadium) (d/n) (01:00 GMT)
23rd Feb Pool A: England v Scotland, Christchurch (22:00 GMT, 22 Feb)
1st March Pool A: England v Sri Lanka, Wellington (Westpac Stadium) (22:00 GMT, 28 Feb)
9th March Pool A: England v Bangladesh, Adelaide (d/n) (03:30 GMT)
13th March Pool A: England v Afghanistan, Sydney (d/n) (03:30 GMT)
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Feb 15, 2015 12:01:37 GMT
England were woeful today, have to question not batting first after winning the toss. Taylor, Bell, Woakes & Finn can say they did well..the rest were very poor. 20th Feb Pool A: England v New Zealand, Wellington (Westpac Stadium) (d/n) (01:00 GMT) 23rd Feb Pool A: England v Scotland, Christchurch (22:00 GMT, 22 Feb) 1st March Pool A: England v Sri Lanka, Wellington (Westpac Stadium) (22:00 GMT, 28 Feb) 9th March Pool A: England v Bangladesh, Adelaide (d/n) (03:30 GMT) 13th March Pool A: England v Afghanistan, Sydney (d/n) (03:30 GMT) It was the decision of a team that lacks confidence in its abilities against the Aussie quicks. Didn't fancy facing a fired up Mitchell Johnson. Not really convinced Finn had a particularly good day - a hat trick at the end and 5 wickets is a bit meaningless really when they'd already racked up 340. He's no more to blame than anyone else but he did go for 71 in his 10 and is part of a generally misfiring bowling unit. I'd be surprised if one of them is not replaced by Jordan in the next game. |
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Feb 16, 2015 16:16:15 GMT
Not sure about Ireland - a lot of people's pick to spring a surprise but they were ghastly in their warm-ups and their big game is first up on Sunday against the Windies. Windies are a shambles but Ireland have not looked much better and I kind of back Windies to pull it all together when it really matters. Whoops......Obviously underestimated quite what a shambles Windies actually are. They did well to pull it back from 90-5 but to let Ireland chase down 300+ shows how totally toothless their bowling attack is. Ireland suddenly in A1 position to qualify for the Quarters; need to beat Zimbabwe though who I know pretty much nothing about but they managed to give South Africa much more of a game than anyone would have expected so no walkovers. Ireland are a solid outfit lacking superstars - apparently that is enough to beat Windies these days which is a bit sad really. Still another 300+ score first innings (this time chased down) goes to highlight this will be a big scoring tournament. Scotland make their bow tonight - I'm going to say it right now they have zero chance of getting a result v New Zealand. They are probably the weakest team in the tournament. |
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Post by lostinspace on Feb 16, 2015 22:15:34 GMT
after 2 overs.........the scots are 1 for 1 that 1 is one extra!!!
sorry make that 1 for 2 wickets!!! not too promising a start
12 for 4 wickets after 4 overs........IF they make 50 they will do well at this rate
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Feb 17, 2015 11:37:16 GMT
after 2 overs.........the scots are 1 for 1 that 1 is one extra!!! sorry make that 1 for 2 wickets!!! not too promising a start 12 for 4 wickets after 4 overs........IF they make 50 they will do well at this rate They actually battled back surprisingly well with the ball! |
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Post by lostinspace on Feb 17, 2015 17:33:00 GMT
after 2 overs.........the scots are 1 for 1 that 1 is one extra!!! sorry make that 1 for 2 wickets!!! not too promising a start 12 for 4 wickets after 4 overs........IF they make 50 they will do well at this rate They actually battled back surprisingly well with the ball! fair play to them, two goodish knocks, and the collection of NZ wickets must have made them feel they had done pretty well |
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Feb 17, 2015 18:28:54 GMT
They actually battled back surprisingly well with the ball! fair play to them, two goodish knocks, and the collection of NZ wickets must have made them feel they had done pretty well I think they'd take that any day of the week. With a few exceptions they are basically a collection of high quality club cricketers playing in international cricket. They don't have anything like the pedigree or experience of the Irish team who chocked full of County Cricketers and guys on the global T20 circuit. The Scots really are a bunch of club players so they'll be absolutely thrilled with that - only losing to a very strong New Zealand team by 3 wickets was a very fine effort. I bet there were probably one or 2 nervous moments in the home dressing room. Their next game is against England by the way.... |
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Mar 11, 2015 11:19:52 GMT
Kumar Sangakarra score another century. The guy is 37 and seems to be getting better and better. It's unbelievable and a massive shame that he is retiring from everything except Tests after this World Cup. Says it is to do with a promise made to his family but it seems amazing to retire when you are not just in your prime but seemingly still getting better.
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bluetornados
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Post by bluetornados on Mar 13, 2015 16:37:15 GMT
Kumar Sangakarra score another century. The guy is 37 and seems to be getting better and better. It's unbelievable and a massive shame that he is retiring from everything except Tests after this World Cup. Says it is to do with a promise made to his family but it seems amazing to retire when you are not just in your prime but seemingly still getting better. Agree, he has been one of the greatest batsmen ever to grace the game, can do it at all levels and like you said seems to be getting better. Hey..!!...England won a match today. |
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Mar 13, 2015 17:46:23 GMT
Kumar Sangakarra score another century. The guy is 37 and seems to be getting better and better. It's unbelievable and a massive shame that he is retiring from everything except Tests after this World Cup. Says it is to do with a promise made to his family but it seems amazing to retire when you are not just in your prime but seemingly still getting better. Agree, he has been one of the greatest batsmen ever to grace the game, can do it at all levels and like you said seems to be getting better. Hey..!!...England won a match today. Yeah!! We sure showed those Afghans, half of whom grew up in refugee camps, a thing or 2 about cricket! We are upholding the proud basis of British Foreign Policy for the last 200 years; keep invading places until we find someone we can beat at cricket.... |
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Post by lostinspace on Mar 13, 2015 22:22:43 GMT
Agree, he has been one of the greatest batsmen ever to grace the game, can do it at all levels and like you said seems to be getting better. Hey..!!...England won a match today. Yeah!! We sure showed those Afghans, half of whom grew up in refugee camps, a thing or 2 about cricket! We are upholding the proud basis of British Foreign Policy for the last 200 years; keep invading places until we find someone we can beat at cricket.... history and sour grapes go together well..........don't they just!!! |
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Post by Geelong Gas on Mar 19, 2015 21:41:56 GMT
The Saffers have rid themselves of the choker tag with that victory against Sri Lanka. Or maybe the choke will come in the semis?!?
Looking forward to Australia-Pakistan tonight, I just hope the good Pakistan turn up to make it a contest.
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Mar 20, 2015 12:10:40 GMT
The Saffers have rid themselves of the choker tag with that victory against Sri Lanka. Or maybe the choke will come in the semis?!? Looking forward to Australia-Pakistan tonight, I just hope the good Pakistan turn up to make it a contest. I thought Pakistan gave it a decent shot. This is very far from a vintage Pakistan side - they just don't have a very good batting lineup. But their bowlers made it interesting and Wahab Riaz bowled the spell of his life which should get a lot of counties interested for T20 season. Had Pakistan fielders took their chances when the Aussies were still 120/80 runs away it could have gotten very interesting indeed because all the pressure would have piled onto Aus. Felt really for Riaz - his performance deserved so much more than the figures he came away with. Let down by some truly dreadful fielding. Pakistan have too many old guys lumbering around out there and few athletes. I also fancied an upset because so many Aussie commentators were already talking about Aus-India Semi Final before this game so it's shame they didn't get to eat humble pie. Australia vs India should be a lot of fun in the Semi's. India have been much better than expected. You'd expect the other semi to be SA vs NZ but NZ need to get past Windies tomorrow and they have a few potential match winners in their side. I think New Zealand would go into a South Africa Semi-Final as slight favourites; they've played better in this tournament. |
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Post by lostinspace on Mar 21, 2015 11:52:36 GMT
A huge first 50 over innings kills the game, for me these high score first knock kill the game off, as it just puts the second inning team under so much pressure, having to score at best part of 8 an over from ball one is just too much to ask , but credit to NZ for their approach, as West indies ' Gayle could destroy any team if he got it right
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