We Won!!

Cup WINDIA!!

Tale of Two Teams with unRivaled Rivalry

Before anything, I need to own up that my other semi-final's prediction was upset. Hey, I miscalculated that it was seventh semi-final appearance for the Kiwis. So, one finalist of 2015 World Cup has been decided!

What also has been decided is that now the Cup will stay on the Indian Subcontinent. On cards today is the other semi-final: A match-up that threatens to bring not one but two neighboring nations to a screeching halt. Some employers have declared the day off for their employees, and those who did not, will probably have their employees calling in sick. The PMs of the two countries will only be two of the celebrities watching the game. Even the hoops hoopla or so called march madness here in the US was displaced on National Public Radio, NPR all-things-considered for a discussion about the upcoming semi-final. How did we even get here?

Past: For the Men-in-Green, it wasn't just the usual board bickering about team composition and leadership but also the fixing scandal that put them in a spot. Preparations before the tournament weren't best either, but the MIGs seemed to have come together and held on to each other. The Men-in-Blue on the other hand had been performing steadily and rising upto the second ranking in the ODIs. While the batting lineup has been doing Tango in Tandem with Tendulakar Tornado, the bowling attack has left much to be desired.

Present: Weakened by the absence of Praveen Kumar and Nehra, SreeSanth and Munaf barely showing up for the games, Zaheer's brilliance buttressed by the batsmen, team India has somehow managed to secure a semi-final spot. The majority of top batting spots in the tournament, so far, are occupied by the Indians. Yuvraj is born-again all-rounder and grabbed four MoM awards. In contrast, Pakistan's consistent peformance has relied on their bowling attack. Afridi has revealed himself as the destructor-in-chief, holding steady as tournaments top wicket taker.

Future: Doesn't matter what stage, India-Pakistan game always promises to be a cracker-jacker of a game.

India has never lost to Pakistan in the world-cup and hoping that this record will stay for atleast another four years. As always wearing blue and cheering for Men-in-Blue, GO GO GO INDIA!!!!

Upset Prediction: Kiwis to escape the Clutches of Lankan Lions!!

Only four teams are left in contention for lifting the Cricket's most coveted cup, the World Cup! Out of the four: three teams are from the hosting sub-continent, three of them only lost one game in the group phase and same three have come out winners in previous editions of the world cup! Kiwis are #4 and probably with lowest returns in bookie circles and not many give them a chance to move to the finals. Not a very commonly known fact: the Kiwis have maximum semi-final appearances in World Cup than the other three. So here is an upset prediction: A gentleman by name of John Wright who marshalled Men-In-Blue to their last World Cup final appearnace in 2003 will help the Black Caps tame the Lankan Lions. Will they be sixth time lucky or wait for the seventh time?

New Nuclear Reaction Discovered in 2011 Cricket World Cup: The Batting Power Plays

Forget time to follow the games, even finding time to scribble a few notes  while travelling and then working a schedule spanning multiple time zones has been impossible. So this one will be short.

The catastrophic events in Japan recently have been very depressing. Heart goes out to all those who suffered the losses of un-imaginable proportions and I hope and pray that the impending nuclear disaster can be averted.

Meanwhile there has been a new nuclear reaction discovered this world-cup. Its called the "batting power-play". It is a very potent tool in the armory of the batting side with  potential to propel their scores to stratospheric levels. But just like nuclear reaction, this energy source unless tamed can lead to catastrophic results. It was the melt-down of the men-in-blue during these power-plays in the games against both Poms and Proteas that led to loss of significant points. Such self-destruction hasn't been the undoing of Indians alone, the India-England tied game saw similar effect during English innings.

Strangely enough, instead of putting bowlers under pressure, the batsmen have intertwined themselves in psychological turmoil and causing un-necessary slogging. For instance, even though Poms took the batting power-play in tied game, the asking rate didn't warrant the slogging that tilted the scales in the game. Also the teams have been not being very creative about timing the batting power-play. Why didn't Dhoni and team take the batting powerplay after 15th over in the Proteas game? Sehwag and Tendulkar had almost knocked SA out of the game, and maybe taking the power-play at that stage could have been the knockout punch!

Meanwhile, the group stage continued to highlight the fickle fate of the teams. The Pakistani's perfect record was blemished by big-loss to the Black-caps. The Kangaroos lost their first game in worldcup since 1992! Poms continued their unpredicatble ways. Though the list of quarter-finalists predictions won't throw any surprises, the order of these teams in their respective groups and hence the quarter-final matchups is still up in the air. And these matchups will be significant as soon the margin of error will be zero!

So far, So good: Half-way honors @ WC'2011

We are at roughly the half-way stage of WC'2011. Lots of cricket has been played and lots still to come. It has been a concoction of some completely lopsided, boring and predictable matches and some nerve racking roller-coasters with no winner in the end. Indeed,  the world cup saw the first tied game ever! Inspired by Oscars, here are some awards for the performances till this stage:

The Unpredictables: This one goes to the Poms! The english team barely managed to register a win against Holland. So much so that they had to forefiet the MoM award to the dutch! After more twists and turns than a bollywood thriller, the India v/s England game couldn't decide a winner. But it wasn't just this match where the pom pendulum pulsated from one extreme to another. In less than seven days, the english team managed to register all three possible ODI results. First they threatened to set record for highest run chase (329) ever in a WC match against the much touted team India. Somehow, the men-in-blue managed to hang in there after Strauss's assualt and sneak out a tie. Followed it up, by allowing, a so-called associate,  Irish team to recover from 115-5 and set the record for highest chase in WC. And just when the bookies had adjusted the odds against them, the poms pulled off a magical win over invincible looking South African team! There have been only 24 ties in 3000+ ODIs ever played. The odds of a tie are less than 1%, what are the odds of having all three results in three consecutive game. Phew! The unpredictability of the Pom Pendulum is spooking the bookies.

The Perfects: None other than the Paki Perfects! Though three teams are still to loose a game in this edition of the world cup, both India and Australia have lost a point each to game with no winners. The Aussies might have been joint holders, had the nature not intervened in their match against the Lankans!

The Some-How Unbeatens: The Men-In-Blue who have always looked vulnerable but some-how managed to remain unbeaten. In the opening game, Bangladesh gave them jitters. The whole nation chewed their nails off watching them almost lose after scoring 300+ runs against England. And before Yusuf's pathanesque flourish in the end against the Irish, the problems facing them were bared to all. They haven't lost any, despite what could be perceived as lackadaisical performances, but a knock out punch from them hasn't been witnessed yet!

The Cinderellas: The Team Irish of course! It was Kevin O'Brien who tore apart the English bowling attack to rush to the fastest world cup century and crowned an associate nation team with the honour of highest run-chase in world cup. The victory had lots of people in tears but it will take more than that to convince ICC chiefs :( Porterfield is a role model for all those aspiring to learn the art of marshalling limited resources for winning cricket games! His aggresive and adaptive field settings match his bowlers and the on-strike batsman has been a treat to watch. Even Dhoni who leads the second best team with best spin attack in world could learn a trick or two to lend potency to his bowling attack. 

The Toothless: This dubious distinction goes to Indian spin attack! Piyush Chawla has turned Gandhian this world cup. If you hit me once, I will give you another one to hit. Bhajji also shares some of the culpability. Some honor was restored by the Yuvi's five-for against the Irish.

Keep watching there is lot more coming and lots of awards still to be given out. You got any favourites? The tournament is just getting warmed up!

Hosting Hiccups

World cup is back in the Indian subcontinent and there has been much buzz and enthusiasm in the gully. Expectations are high given their team is ranked #2 currently and there has been lots of talk from the men-in-blue wanting to do it for Sachin. And what a fitting tribute it will be to his unparalleled career. But aren't we all being a bit presumptuous that this will be the last chance to witness the wizardry from the broad bat of the little master in a world-cup. Gully's only response to such presumptions has always been "Yeh dil maange more!!"

Though the organization has been broadly good, there have been quite a few hiccups along the way as well. First it was the controversial shifting from Bengal to Bengaluru. The Mecca of Indian Cricket aka Eden Garden was deprived of the Indian-England group game due to the ground renovation not taking off the ground in time. Maybe no lessons were learnt from the embarrasments during the preparations of the Commonwealth Games!  And the impact of shifting a world-cup game for the home country with over a billon cricket crazies had to be felt. 30,000 fans thronged for the game seats that had suddenly been energized ala Star Trek from Eden Garden to the Garden city. Ticket tussle, Police power, complete chaos!

Food fiasco in Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi caused the next hosting hiccup! The security in the power center of the nation was fool proof, even the food wasn't allowed. Only food allowed before it got spoilt was Geoffery Boycott's sandwich he carries due to his throat cancer and the drinks and chips in the sponsor's stalls. Was security the reason for food-tight access to the grounds? To top it all, the public address systems in the nation's capital went silent during the teams' national anthems.

The virtual domain of world-cup hosting hasn't been spared of the hiccup hits either. willow.tv, the official online telecasters of the ICC 2011 world-cup, was brought down by a denial of service (DoS) attack even before the first ball of the world cup was bowled. That's the official word atleast, maybe the cricket craziness world over was under-estimated! How else can the crash of the ticket sales website be explained?

Its being called a ballot but now the tickets for semi-final and final matches will be allocated by some sort of lottery. Ofcourse, this is only for the blocked seats, remaining seats have already been assigned by quotas and can not be unblocked. Alas, there are no quotas for the true supporters of the Men-in-Blue, the folks from the gully.

Neverthless, the pride is not only in the Indian team lifting the cup but also great hosting and hospitality experience of this world cup. Hence, in the gully, the cheering for Men-in-Blue continues and so does the flickering of the flame of hope that hiccups like this will not at any stage lead to choking.

Mean to Minnows?

Though gully always had a point to make, the typist took a long hiatus specially after the drubbing India got at the not-so-lucky '07 World Cup. New world cup, new start but same old madness and following for the Men-in-Blue. And that always has been the point in the gully.

A lot is being made of the length of the WC'11, but its not clear whether it is the impending fatigue from the world cup or the fact that the next season of IPL starts right after the new world champions are crowned. But one thing is certain, this has brought to forefront the discussion about the so-called minnows and the role they play in the world cup. There has been mixed reaction to ICC's untimely annoucement about culling the associate (the politically correct term for so-called minnows) teams from the next world-cup. Ponting points that world-cup is no venue for development of cricket for associate nations and that the world-cup will be better off without the distractions of the weak minnows. Maybe he does have a point? Prior to the Netherland-England game, there was only one occasion when the teams ranked in bottom three of their respective groups (let us define the minnows) has batted 50 overs. And only two times when they were able to restrict their opponents to a below 300 score (even if NZ wanted to score more than 72 they couldn't! Kenya had bundled for 69). But maybe all this is being too mean to the minnows? While Indian bowling was exposed by the Bangla tigers, the Dutch gave ample anxious moments to the Barmy Army camp! One couldn't help remembering the result of the England-Netherland 20-20 world-cup game. How often does a player from the loosing team win man-of-the-match? Not only did the Oranje do the asssociates proud by their performance, they also fired the warning salvo to the rest. Though the statements like those by Sehwag about teams not being able to compete make good media sound bites, the bullies would be better off by not taking any opponent lightly. The difference in loss and win for the Dutch was not what was done on the field but what was left undone. They did enough but lacked the experience of competing at top level to not push hard enough. Its a thin line and world cups are great venue for the associates to cross over to the right side of the line. There is also a concern about how the financial and emotional funds will be impacted if the associates don't have the chance of playing in the world cup tournament. And maybe it will also dampen the ironical shift of the best players from the associate teams to stronger teams like England. Case in point, is Netherlands, first it was Dirk Nannes, now Kervezee and also talk about ten Doeschate. But then ICC eligibility rules and how players and teams meander through these to achieve their goals is a whole discussion in itself. In this debate, the right question to ask is "what role does world cup play in the development of the cricket in associate and other nations?"

And as Strauss rightly said, the decision is best left till after the tournament is over. Till then, stage has been set for witnessing more courage from the minnows and caution from the rest!