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Maltaran

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Pietersen really shouldn't have opened his mouth about the whole 'humiliate Australia' thing. It's true England did have a chance to do it by dumping them out of the competition, but he probably only made it harder for his team to win by firing up Australia, not that they would have needed much extra motivation.

A no-nonsense run chase without many fireworks...a steadying sort of chase, but I suppose Australia were always just going to be looking for the win.

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Is it just me or were the Poms taking the piss out of the painful batsman introduction vignettes?

"I'm Kevin Pietersen, right-hand bat and my favourite shot is the block shot."

"I'm Paul Collingwood, right-hand bat and my favourite shot is the nurdle off the pads."

"I'm ? Mascherenas, right-hand bat and my favourite shot is the slog to cow-corner."

Were some of the ones I heard.

The Aussies were much more straight-laced and dull...

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Is it just me or were the Poms taking the piss out of the painful batsman introduction vignettes?

I don't think it was just the Poms. Scott Styris claimed that his favourite shot was "forward defense," and Jacob Oram said "anything that goes to the boundary."

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I'm loathe to make fun of a person's name but...

I was drinking with some Indian friends during the England/Australia game and we couldn't see the TV from the balcony but could hear the commentary. For a while I though I heard mention of a "Master Anus" batting for England. I asked one of my friends to please pronounce his name for my understanding but to a man they all pronounced it the same and couldn't carry on a proper conversation for the next half hour for the fits of laughter we were in (we were all suitably drunk at the time, except the ones observing Ramadan who were only half as drunk).

Anyway, apologies to Dimitri Mascarenhas for any sleight from this quarter.

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I was seriously annoyed when they didn't put Master Anus to bat above Snape yesterday. It probably wouldn't have made too much difference but Severus is not the type of player you want to go in at that stage.

Also my friends around here marvel at some of the England accents, especially Flintoff's favourite shot: the back foot poonch.

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I was seriously annoyed when they didn't put Master Anus to bat above Snape yesterday. It probably wouldn't have made too much difference but Severus is not the type of player you want to go in at that stage.

Also my friends around here marvel at some of the England accents, especially Flintoff's favourite shot: the back foot poonch.

I reply not to the comment but just to note a South African poster.

:thumbsup:

Bout damn time.

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I just hope you don't expect any pro-SA sports teams posts from me. (Except the Lions, and they don't have too much going for them anyway)

Even by England standards, it was a massively impressive feat to throw that game away. Losing three wickets in the penultimate over for two runs was surely the highlight of their ineptitude.

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I'm really hoping India give SA a good drubbing today to knock them out. All my South African friends have now reached that stage in a tournament where they feel that it is their God-given right to win the whole thing. In fact one of my friends has suggested that Morne Morkel will be the number one international bowler in a year.

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Doesn't seem like Ponting's disappearance has affected the Aussies. Sri Lanka bowled out for 101, a good bowling performance by Australia, Stuart Clark in particular nabbed four wickets for 20 runs in his spell. The top six batsmen all went pretty quickly, leaving Vaas to pick up the pieces. Freakish catch by Michael Clarke off Maharoof.

I was just about to castigate Shane Watson's performance. Most of you know by now that I am not a Shane Watson fan at all, and have a firm belief that he shouldn't always be an automatic selection, which he seems to be, despite not having many first-class matches under his belt and always being injured. Well, today he made a couple of misfields and bowled a no-ball above waist-height. His figures look ok, but I think that's more a product of the situation he was bowling in where Sri Lanka had no option to hit out at all because of the wickets that fell.

Anyway, it's all a moot point. Watson has come down with an injury. Again. Something happened to his hamstring and he couldn't bowl out his over.

The Australian selectors have to stop being so starry-eyed about Shane Watson. It's an insult to more deserving players when they pick a guy who has always been injured, never had any prolonged run of cricket, doesn't have a strong international record, has barely played two first-class matches in a row and then is straight-up bolted into the Australian team at the first opportunity. I feel a bit bad for him - it's not his fault that he's always picked, and the injuries aren't his fault either since he supposedly does a lot of fitness work - but his selection is really a departure from logic.

I suppose a Twenty20 tournament isn't as important as a Test cricket series, but they should really drop him from all consideration now until he has a proper, injury-free run of first-class matches under his belt. He has broken down so much he's a liability, and most of them have been in-game. What if he's selected for a Test match, and then the first session on the first day, breaks down in the morning? Then you're stuck with a non-player the whole way. I wouldn't trust his fitness at all.

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I am not a big fan of this Twenty20 form of cricket. But I'm a lesser fan of useless ODIs that have no meaning. If T20 means that pointless 7-match long series of the intermediate form of the game die a painless death I am all for it.

Test Matches must be nurtured at all cost of course.

PS -SA imploding as usual on the big stage. They only need to pass 125 to qualify for the semis though.

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They didn't even manage to pass 125, and the chokers tag still remains. It seems that South Africa always do well in the group stages but when it comes to knockout matches, they don't just lose, they disintegrate (eg World Cup semifinal). IT's a bit harsho n them to lose just one match and they're out, whereas Australia lost two matches, for instance, but they could have lost this match and still stayed in - it was the fact that they made it such a big loss.

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Damn...I was looking forward to us Aussies knocking them out in the semis again. :thumbsup:

Until they produce a result in a major tournament/series they're forever going to be stuck with the chokers tag, I'm afraid.

The sad thing is they've gone from being unlucky in desperately tight situations ('99 and '03 WCs) to imploding completely and failing miserably when it counts.

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