Australia collapse again, lose second game to South Africa
Australia lose another warm-up game in this Cricket World Cup 2011 and this time it is to South Africa. Some may say that it is only a warm-up. Unfortunately, that argument would have held true had the side fought hard, matched the South Africans and then gone down.Instead, there were huge issues to look at for South Africa.One was their batting. While batting collapses are common in this day and age of aggressive cricket, they have gone down like a pack of cards on two successive occasions – against India they lost nine wickets for 58 and now, eight for 89.This was followed by their bowling. Only two days ago, India had bowled Australia out in the second innings under lights. This time around, Australia managed just one wicket – the other two were retired outs to allow practice for the other batsmen.Even that wicket was a run-out. The bowling, to me, seems overly dependent onBrett Lee. His ten overs aside, things will look difficult for the side if they have to depend a lowish total and the confidence would be sapping as well.
Bowling attack a question-mark for India
It is a question that would have passed through many people’s minds. While the batting is more or less decided, who will be the final four in the Indian bowling attack.Unfortunately, only Harbhajan Singh makes it to the starting eleven a bowler without question-marks. Zaheer would have made it as well, but there are reports that he has a groin strain and it remain to be seen whether the side will actually risk him for the first game.That means two of Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth should play. My guess is that Nehra will make it to the eleven along with Sreesanth. Munaf has bowled well but needs support from the pitch.That means that there is one spot open for the fourth bowler – and one of R Ashwin or Piyush Chawla will make it through. Till about recently, Chawla was not even in contention and would have probably not played a single game. Now, with his performance against Australia, it makes things interesting.Who are your four bowlers?
Sad to see Ponting complain against Bangalore pitch
Australia lost a game yesterday to India which they should ever have. However, what was surprising to hear at the end of the game was for the Australian skipper to complain about the nature of the track.It is very obvious that the pitches in India will assist spin bowling. And that is the beauty of the sport, which unlike many other sports is not played on an artificial turf where the players know what will be the kind of track they will be up against.Unfortunately, Ponting has a vision that is so blinded by saving his own skin that any track that remotely offers spin is an under-prepared one.Instead, one feels that Ponting should look at the shots that some of his batsmen played, included his own stroke to get stumped. At best, they could be described as atrocious. Clearly, there is a need to correct some of that than blame the pitch for his undoing.Rest assured that in India and Sri Lanka where they played their league games, the tracks will assist spin.Hussey’s exclusion makes for interesting analysis
Controversies are a part of any team but when one of the top captains of the world says that he had no idea why a decision was taken, it calls for one to look up. This is what happened when the Australian captain Ricky Ponting said that he had no idea why Michael Hussey wasn’t selected to the side.The problem had to do with Hussey’s injury which he had not recovered from. The selectors decided to err on the side of caution and had Hussey replaced in the side – clearly a decision that wasn’t discussed with the captain.This also probably shows that the selectors are enduring Ponting for the duration of the Cricket World Cup. Sacking him before the tournament would have meant no sense. But a poor performance by Ponting in this tournament and he should be on his way out.And as far Hussey is concerned, it is a surprise to see him express his surprise over the decision as well – making the selectors’ choice unpopular.
Bangladesh Aims For Second Round At 2011 World Cup
Online betting fans know that the 2011 Cricket World Cup is getting closer and closer. The first match is just under a week away as Bangladesh hosts the opening contest of the tournament against India on February 19th at Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.Bangladesh has had mixed success at the World Cup stage but the good news is that they are coming off of their best performance in the 2007 World Cup. In 1999, they had just two wins and in 2003, they had no wins but in 2007, they enjoyed three wins – including wins over India and South Africa – to reach the Super Eights stage.Roughly speaking, they will likely need about four wins to advance to the second round of the Cricket World Cup 2011 and they feel for the first time they are capable to do so.They’ll find themselves in Group B, which also includes teams like England, South Africa West Indies, Ireland and the Netherlands. Four of the seven will progress to the quarterfinals.They are a confident team right now as they rose to eighth in the world one-day international rankings. That comes on the heels of Bangladesh’s 4-0 series win over New Zealand last October and their 3-1 win over Zimbabwe in December.India take on Australia in warm-ups
It is only seven days to go and the Cricket World Cup warm-ups kick off from Saturday. Interestingly, there are five games on the first day while the second day will see India take on Australia – a cracker of a game.
Fortunately for the Indian fan, the India-Australia will be shown live on television and should make for an interesting viewing given the way the two sides are stacked up.There have been two sides in the world which have played good ODI cricket in the country – Australia and South Africa. The last time South Africa were in India, they had lost 2-1 while Australia were beaten 1-0.This game, for the sheer competiveness between the two sides will be exciting. But it will also be interesting to see how the injured few stack up – Sehwag, Tendukar, Gambhir, Ponting, Haddin – and whether they can get rid of the rust in their system.Doug Bollinger will be the bowler to watch out for.
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