WTF happened in Guyana?

Man, that was so bad! It’s taken me some time to recover, which is the reason for the 2 day delay.

I mean, was Mahela Jayawardene playing on one strip and the other Lankan batsmen on another?

Mahela, the purist, plays an aggressive knock of 81 off 51 (SR 158), while Dilshan, the flamboyant and inventive batsman, makes 3 off 19 (SR 15).

I had to admit, after the raining fours and sixes in the IPL, the slowness of the pitch was hard to absorb as runs were hard to come by.

After crying hoarse (to myself, not on the blog 😛 ) that bowlers are being unfairly dealt with in the IPL, it took some getting used to when the bowlers finally did get something going their way.

Mathews gave an absolutely fab start like how he did last year in the semi-final against West Indies. A wicket-maiden was the best possible way to start the innings. Though Chanaka did give it away a bit with 10 runs off the next over, it was still game.

However, New Zealand were getting into a similar position like SL when Jesse Ryder was seeing the ball clearly while the others seemed more like they needed a cataract operation.

His dismissal triggered a period where only 16 runs were scored in the next 6 overs.

Mendis bowls his last over, the 17th over. This, IMO, was the turning point of the match.

At 16.4 overs, the situation was 38 runs from 20 balls.

At this point, I was feeling preeeety smug. Jacob Oram, who is a member of the club, “Most Overhyped Cricket Players”, was on strike. After him, there were only Hopkins, McNullum, Southee and Bond.

However, the 2 sixes that he struck in the last two balls (the second of which was one-handed), made the situation much more easier for the Kiwis. 26 from 18 is much more gettable.

The rest, as they say, is history, as Dan the Man sacrificed his wicket to ensure that McNullum (member of the club, “Most Underhyped Cricket Players”) took them home.

Now, TBH, I’m pretty worried.

Why?

We play the Zimbos tomorrow.

They have 3 spinners (4, if you include Greg Lamb) in their line-up. All of them are preeety good….

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Zimbos to exceed their mandate?

OK, I have an admission to make.

I am a bit scared that Sri Lanka might not make it to the next round.

It may be a strange proclamation to make, considering that, on paper, Sri Lanka are better than the Zimbos.

Moreover, we all know that New Zealand are as clueless against spin. They’re as clueless as virgin boys to sex.

However, the Zimbos have come up with 2 unexpected results in the warm-up matches.

They won by a run against Australia (14-a-side) and, more convincingly, by 12 runs against Pakistan (15-a-side).

The pessimistic in you may argue that, to lend these games more credibility, they should have been between 11 players.

However, just check out the scorecards and you will notice that both Australia and Pakistan fielded their best batsmen and bowlers for the matches.

To get an idea of how good their spin troika (Graeme Cremer, Ray Price and Prosper Utseya) is, check out the highlights of the T20 they played against West Indies in Trinidad earlier this year.

The fact that pitches have slowed down in the West Indies in the past decade or so has been well documented as the reason why there aren’t as many express pace bowlers coming out of the Caribbean than before.

In addition to putting the subcontinental teams as the favourites for the trophy, I’d throw Zimbabwe into the hat.

Therefore, my wish for today is that the bloody miser, Dan Vettori, has a bad day.

Ditto to Nathan McC.

And let’s also  hope that the parlimentarian scores something and gets some wickets!

Also, here’s something off-topic.

If you look at it, the two-hour bus ride from the airport was more tiring and difficult for us than the last few weeks of the IPL

MS Dhoni, India’s captain, is enjoying the travel in St Lucia

The quote and the sentence in italics are taken from Cricinfo. How dumb could they get? MSD is enjoying? Really? :S

WTF Charles Coventry???

No, the title isn’t meant to drag you into this post only for you to realise it’s some rambling nonsense, but is precisely what came to my head when I came to Cricinfo.

I was expecting to see some unending ranting about the latest England debutant, Jonathan Trott, but saw that Coventry has equalled the 12 year-old record for the highest individual innings in an ODI of 194, set by Saeed Anwar against UAE.

True, Bangladesh don’t exactly have Shane Warne or Zaheer Khan in their bowling attack, but I expected them to easily knock over the Zimbabweans, considering the fact that they don’t get a lot of international matches to play.

But, seriously…..

Phew…..

To think that he would’ve broken the record if stupid Prosper Utseya didn’t take a couple off the 4th ball of the over, he would’ve got there, and perhaps even gone for the double!

I wouldn’t blame you for secretly taking your phone and telling the WADA people to come and raid my house to see whether I’m using recreational drugs, considering how delirious I’ve become and the fact that I’ve posted for the third time in 2 days.

However, for some reason which I don’t understand (perhaps because of the romantic in me), I tend to get a bit excitable when records are about to be broken!

This bloke is really good…just reminds me of a line from 5ive’s famous song “We Will Rock You” – …bloody you’re a boy, make a big noise, playin’ in the street, be a big man someday…Charles, this is your moment! Soak it up, young boy!

And, BTW, Coventry wears tinted glasses! ;P

Pictures courtesy of Cricinfo

No Ugly Duckling @ the ICC meeting!

Sorry for not posting in a long time, been preocuppied with a lot of matters, and finally found the time to start posting for the year! 🙂

Now, to the topic….

WHOPEEEEEEE……………….

Finally, after such a long time, the ICC is doing something useful! After nearly 100 years of pointless existence, during which they have done nothing but given official approval to the fixtures played between nations.

Basically, here’s the rundown on what’s been happening. The ICC plan to hold their annual meeting in Australia, where Mugabe and his cronies, including Peter “I’m such a troublesome fuck” Chingoka are banned. The ICC president, David Morgan, has been lobbying the Aussie Foreign Ministries and all those guys to let Chingoka in.

However, now that I realise it, the ICC actually haven’t done anything at all!

Reason is, Chingoka still hasn’t submitted an application for a visa. He says that he wants a guarantee that his visa will be approved before he applies for a visa. So, in a nutshell, since this idiot hasn’t applied for a visa, no-one can really do anything!

Frankly, I’ve seen really heartless politicians here in SL, but the ones in Zimbabwe must top it all! To see the way they suffer (they actually eat out of garbage, just like what you’d expects dogs and cats to do) is just simply heartbreaking.

It becomes more painful to see when you know the fact that Zimbabwe was, once ago, one of the most prosperous economies in the continent!

Just hope that the ICC can do one useful thing and bar Zimbabwe from international cricket and stop funding till Mugabe is in power!

PS – Look at the bastard in the pic…looks like he was born to 2 orangutans!