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Cricket VI


Stubby

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I'd love to be able to start this new one with some crack about oranges but I think some responses would be mentioning a Gayle or something.

Nothing makes sense anyomre.

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A thousand apologies, English fans, but I will be rooting for Pakistan in their T20 match-up. I think they deserve a little bit of success after all their team has been through. And some are even mentioning a 3-year hiatus for the team playing at home.

I think its not that hard to write newspapr headlines when it comes to cricket.

"Gayle force hurricane rips through Australian team"

"Pathan tank rolls over opposition"

"Rob key to English success"

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I'd love to be able to start this new one with some crack about oranges but I think some responses would be mentioning a Gayle or something.

Nothing makes sense anyomre.

How do you think Australia will do against Sri Lanka? I reckon they'll have to play a lot better than they did against the Windies to beat the Sri Lankans (and they'll probably need a big victory to go through on the net run-rate). It would be ironic if Australia was the first major nation to get knocked out of the tournament even after England somehow managed to lose to the Netherlands.

I believe it is Sri Lanka's first international cricket match since being shot by terrorists, so I'd like to see them do well, and not just because it would knock Australia out ;)

England were much better today, there isn't much criticism you could make of their defeat of Pakistan, even if they were helped by some woeful fielding. Who would have thought that if you actually selected some of your best 20/20 players (Pietersen, Mascarenhas, Swann) you might actually perform better :rolleyes:

Seems my man Jan didn't have such a good day :(. Still, South Africa were clinical there - see whether they can keep up their level against New Zealand.

The New Zealand game is effectively a dead rubber since they've both already qualified for the next stage, and no points are carried over - so it might not be the most hard-fought game.

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I wouldn't be surprised if we (Australia) went down to Sri Lanka. The cost of Gayle's assault on our net run rate is so high that we'd need to really go for it against these guys. And while Australia has the reputation of lifting its game for the crunch matches, I'm not so sure that applies in the Twenty20 form of the game, or for the guys in this current Australian team.

I've already mentioned how our attack is a bad one for Twenty20 (no recognised spinner, two genuine fast bowlers who could get smashed). Sri Lanka, on the other hand, are well suited to it with possibly two good spinners playing (Murali and Mendis) as well as one of the best Twenty20 pace bowlers (Malinga). I won't be too surprised if I wake up tomorrow to find that we've been knocked out of the tournament.

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Thanks for rubbing it in Eloisa.

Sometimes I hate being a part-time Bangla fan. They can blast 180 against a full strength Aussie attack in one game and then scrape their way to 130-odd against a bowling attack made of electricians and carpenters in the next. Give me a break. :bang:

Anyway, back to the drawing-board for the Tigers. Maybe the return of the ICL players will add a bit of potency to their limited overs set-up.

On the bright side, I was able to release some of my exam-induced tension by shouting abuse at my TV screen.

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As the Bangla coach mentioned, the team doesnt lack for talent. At this point its mostly mental in their case. Anyway, good to see Ireland progress to the next round.

According to cricinfo the SL team had trouble getting into the stadium (rumors being there were protests from the substantial Tamil population in London regarding the SL govts most recent actions). Any truth to those?

Punter is in fairly early...boy do they miss Hayden in this format.

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I wouldn't be surprised if we (Australia) went down to Sri Lanka. The cost of Gayle's assault on our net run rate is so high that we'd need to really go for it against these guys. And while Australia has the reputation of lifting its game for the crunch matches, I'm not so sure that applies in the Twenty20 form of the game, or for the guys in this current Australian team.

I've already mentioned how our attack is a bad one for Twenty20 (no recognised spinner, two genuine fast bowlers who could get smashed). Sri Lanka, on the other hand, are well suited to it with possibly two good spinners playing (Murali and Mendis) as well as one of the best Twenty20 pace bowlers (Malinga). I won't be too surprised if I wake up tomorrow to find that we've been knocked out of the tournament.

At least you can have the satisfaction that your analysis was accurate, although I guess you'd have preferred to be wrong ;)

Australia don't seem to have the balance right for Twenty20, in either the batting or the bowling. In longer forms of the game it would be a formidable team, but the batting just doesn't seem as explosive as the best Twenty20 nations and the bowling isn't economical enough. Still a surprise to see them going out so early, though.

Out of the teams still in the tournament, I'd still say South Africa and India are the favourites, SA in particular don't have any obvious weaknesses and seem strong in all areas of the game. Sri Lanka are a threat as well, as the Aussies discovered, but although they have possibly the best bowling attack their batting might rely too heavily on the top 4. I'm going to predict the winner comes from those three, although the tournaments hasn't exactly followed the form book so far.

Great performance from Ireland as well, although against better teams than Bangladesh I reckon they'll struggle, although their bowling and fielding are tidy, other than the O'Brien brothers their batsmen just aren't aggressive enough to build a big total.

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Still a surprise to see them going out so early, though.

Not really. As I mentioned in the previous thread, neither of the Ashes combatants are going to play that well in a tournament like this. The other teams see this as a great opportunity to achieve something in world cricket, whereas the Ashes teams see this as nothing more than an appetiser and are eagerly awaiting the main course.

To be fair to England, they played well against Pakistan the other night, so they may still surprise me.

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Jamie Siddons' press conference after Bangladesh's loss:

We had a reasonable start, we were 40 or 50 off the first six and from there 160 is [possible] if you bat sensibly to a plan, but if the boys just keep disobeying the plan you end up with a shitty little score like 130.

Very classy Siddons. I wonder if that's the first time an international cricket coach has referred to his team's total as a "shitty little score".

Although that is nothing compared to the spray my TV copped.

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If there's one thing you can count on England doing, it's managing to do everything without suprising anyone.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got their arses handed to them in the round robin. Neither would I be surprised if they went on to win the whole damn thing. They have that kind of inconsistency that you just sit back and let whatever is going to happen, just happen.

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