CricDigs Blogs

This series has turned down tables big time for India. Indian cricket team has for long carried on with player’s reputation. At one stage there looked noway an youngster could imagine anything more than supplying drinks on the field. Its fantastic to see the way the Indian Cricketing Board has turned now. Don’t really know what happened to them, whatever be it, things have begun to happen for India. Persisting with youngsters is always a risk, the board was brave enough to take the risk, and its paid off really big time. This Indian team is blend with an energetic lot, who would do anything to make their team to win.

Dropping Ganguly and Dravid really seemed ridiculously insane at the start of the ODI series. But now one realises, what such risky decisions can turn out to be. India has managed to win a series down under after almost two decades. The simple reason is the attacking cricket by the Indian players and definitely the Australlian slump in form

The finds for India this series will clearly have to be Ishanth Sharma for his ability to threaten batsmen’s with fiery spells, Dhoni as a captain, Gautam Ghambir to steady the ship, Elegant Rohit Sharma, In form Pathan. Yuvaraj did show glimpses of form in the latter part of the series, but was noway near his best. Praveen Kumar to me was really impressive. Its gonna be a real big challenge to him to keep up his form. Its obvious that the other teams by now shud’ve worked him out, and the challenge upfront is to keep doing what he did in Australlia.

This Indian team to me looks really good now. Can challenge any team i believe. The flops of this series for India are Sehwag, Yuvaraj, SreeShanth, Harbhajan Singh(only exception was the first finals). It will be great if Harbhajan Singh shuts his mouth and deeds, and make the ball do the talking. Currently for him the ball is not talking, and he’s bowling at his worst. Its time he shuts his mouth, and do something credible with the ball

The Indian team has been training hard at Kolkotta , preparing for the tour of Bangladesh. The country’s media has been tracking their progress literally on a hourly basis each day. I have another suggestion for BCCI though. Instead of conducting this particular camp , they could as well have done with another alternative where selection would have been easy, which would have made the players fit , saved precious money and cooled down the anger of the seething millions. Yes, they should have asked the players to pedal down to Dhaka from Kolkotta. It could all been organized just like a race with the first 15 players completing the cycle race forming the team. One thing though, excepting Rahul Dravid, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik, I don’t know how many would have actually completed the race!

Bangladesh considered a minnow by many showed that they are no longer the minnow that everybody thinks they are. They started with defeating New Zealand in the warm-up matches and we all very well know what they did to India. This is where their ascent started and people started talking about whether they are going to be the Indian team of 1983 when they went on to win the World Cup. I heard a rumor that’s making rounds that India chose to bat first after winning the toss because they wanted to give their batsmen some batting practice!?!? OMG! Maybe, they wanted to give Bangladeshi bowlers bowling practice

We, along with many other Indian fans, watched this great team Bangladesh fold easily against Australia and New Zealand in their 1st and 2nd Super 8 matches. Okay, so they are not as great as they seemed anymore! So what happened to them? Were they really that great against India or was it the Indians who did the damage to themselves?

Anyway, in this World Cup format they had a lot of chances to prove themselves. They reached the zenith of their ascent when they beat South Africa the recently crowned numero 1 team in their 3rd Super 8 match in Guyana making South Africa now vulnerable and making their chances to reach the next round (semi-finals) more difficult. They failed against England which was a surprise given England’s current form, but they also failed to Ireland? Come on, had anybody heard about Ireland before this World Cup? Now how could such a minnow defeat this awe inspiring Team Bangladesh in such a shameful way? I would definitely call this their fall and even the nadir (lowest point) as this defeat put them out of the world cup. Now, they only have one match left to play with West Indies which is insignificant after South Africa’s win today.

So what did teams like Bangladesh and Ireland achieve in this world cup? Did they at least get noticed? It will be interesting to see how they make use of all this attention after this world cup. One thing is for sure, this world cup will become as one of the favorite events for the Sports Quiz Masters and Cricket Trivia questions for the future generations.

I know it might sound as if as an Indian Cricket fan I am looking for excuses for a possible quick exit by an Indian team from WC’07. But I am not talking just about India here. See what happened to Pakistan!! I am sure you will all agree with me that Pakistan would beat Ireland 99 out of 100 times. So, won’t you call this a fluke now that Ireland might be heading to the Super 8s while Pakistan is packing their bags to go back home? It is quite clear that if Ireland makes it to Super 8s, they will not win any more matches. Nor fair I say. Now in case of India, it was put in the same group as Bangladesh because at some point in time it was #7 or #8 team, but as per current form and ranking it is #5. Bangladesh is a test playing nation so according to ICC it is a “real” cricketing team. Bad deal for India….
There is no doubt that if Indian team played up to their potential they would be much superior to Bangladesh and if Bangladesh makes it to Super 8s they most likely will not win any more matches. So what is being achieved by setting a format in place whereby one upset is causing 2 really powerful sides to crash out of World Cup? I know as I write this, India is not totally out yet, but still facing elimination hinging on their match against Sri Lanka.
Now in my mind this is the most interesting part in this whole thing. When a team reaches super 8s, it will play 6 matches each before 4 teams get selected from 8, but only have 3 matches to get selected as one of the 2 teams from a group of 4. In the previous World Cups there used be a schedule where 2 teams played with each other twice in order to eliminate the luck/fluke factor and give opportunity for good teams to go thru to next level of competition. These are the teams that have been preparing for last 4 years for the World Cup and need to stay in it for it to be interesting.
Hope I am not coming across as some disgruntled fan but as someone who is genuinely unhappy about the tournament format.

Before the world cup started, not even one person (except maybe the team itself) gave Bangladesh a chance in this world cup. Ireland did upset Pakistan and made it to the super 8s, but everyone will still agree that the biggest upset was caused by Bangladesh… not just that they beat a big team like India, but the way in which they beat them. Their game showed a level of professionalism that is usually seen in regular test playing countries (well Bangladesh is also a test playing country but you get my point!).

Bangladesh has finally arrived on the world scene and the sooner the other teams realize that, the better it will be for them. They gave a preview to their World Cup preparations by beating New Zealand in a warm-up game. Supporters of India and Sri Lanka must have felt a little worried after that result. But following the Ostrich Algorithm (stick your head in the sand and pretend that there is no problem) most of the supporters must have thought that it is just a practice game and there was no real threat. Maybe the Indian cricket team thought the same. A big mistake.

Usually when a minnow beats a regular test playing country, it is because the accomplished team has collapsed to a very low total, either while setting that total or chasing. That is what happened between Pakistan and Ireland. Ireland had a great day in the field and restricted Pakistan to 132 and then chased it down with just 3 wickets remaining. People watching that match would know that had Pakistan scored 15 more runs, they would probably have won it, but 132 was just way too small a target to defend,

The beauty of Bangladesh’s victory over India was the fact that they bowled and batted well. Bowling first, they restricted India’s powerhouse batting lineup to 191 runs. That in itself was an huge achievement because India had won both its warm up games. But 191 is not an undefendable score, as Pakistan’s 137 was. They could have easily lost the match had they not batted well. But that is exactly what they made sure would not happen. Right from the start the Bangladeshi bastmen were aggressive and the Indian bowlers had their tasks cut out. Right from the start, never once did it seem that Bangladesh would lose the game, such was the level of their game.

They did lose to Sri Lanka in a very one-sided game, but that was bound to happen one time or the other and their one-sided loss to Australia was unfortunate because of rain playing havoc. Even in their win against Bermuda, the team displayed nerves or steel and dug themselves out with a well fought victory.

Will Bangladesh make it to the semi-finals? No. But do they deserve their place in the Super 8s? Absolutely! The current Bangladeshi team is a bunch of enthusiastic boys (lead by an able man) who have tasted enough success to know how it is, but have had enough of their share of losses to motivate themselves to play better. The average age of the team is in the early 20s. I will not be surprised if the so called upsets keep happening with more frequency in the next four years.

Bangladesh wil be a force to reckon by the time the next world cup arrives, the same as what Sri Lanka was in 1996. Whether they will have the same fate as Sri Lanka had is something which is too early to predict. But my prediction is that in the current Super 8, Bangladesh will win at least one game against either New Zealand, West Indies or England. Let us wait and see!

With only three games remaining in group B, any two of the three teams: India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh can qualify. Currently all three of them have 2 points with one win each. But Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have played only one match while India has won 1 and lost 1.

In this group, India and Sri Lanka were favorites to qualify for the Super 8s. But in the second match of group B, Bangladesh sprung a surprise by beating India. This has created a complicated scenario in Group B. Since India has already lost to Bangladesh, they cannot afford to lost any more matches, otherwise they will meet the same fate as Pakistan - they will be eliminated from the World Cup.

Bangladesh has two matches remaining. They play Sri Lanka on Wednesday and Bermuda on Sunday. For Bangladesh, if they win against Sri Lanka, then they will definitely qualify for the Super 8s. It is expected that they will beat Bermuda.

Sri Lanka also has two matches remaining. They play Bangladesh on Wednesday and India on Friday. If they beat India, they are through to the Super 8s, no matter what.

India has one match remaining, against Sri Lanka on Friday. India HAS to win this match, and hope for some other positive results so that they can go into the Super 8s.

In the above three teams, India’s situation is very interesting. As I said, India has to win against Sri Lanka to have any chance to qualify for the super 8s. If they lose, they are out of the tournament. But if they win, even then they are not assured of a Super 8 berth.

Assuming that India beats Sri Lanka on Friday and also let us assume that Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh on Wednesday. In this case, everything will rest on the result of the Bangladesh-Bermuda match. Bangladesh is expected to win that match, but the difference with which they will win is what will matter. At that point, all three teams: India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will have the same number of points (4) and so the net run rate will decide which two teams will qualify.

India lost to bangladesh narrowly (in the 49th over) and beat Bermuda heavily (by 257 runs). In the present scenario, India does have a very good net run rate. Sri Lanka also beat Bermuda by a huge margin (243 runs) and so they also have a very good run rate. If Sri Lanka beats Bangladesh by a big margin, it will become that much more difficult for Bangladesh to qualify over net run rate.

The thing that is in Bangladesh’s favor is the fact that they play Bermuda in the last match. On that day (assuming that SL has beaten Bangladesh and India has beaten SL) Bangladesh will have an exact idea of how convincingly do they need to beat Bermuda to get ahead in the net run rate against India or Sri Lanka. They will have their task cut out, and will have to beat Bermuda by a very huge margin to secure a place in the Super 8s.

Of course, all these permutations and combinations will not be required if India loses to SL and crashes out of the tournament. Not many people will be happy with that, least of all, yours truly!

Neither among the minnows nor among the pretenders, Bangladesh has the ability to pull a surprise or two in the Cricket World Cup 2007. If the reigns are relaxed a bit Bangladesh can defeat the best teams - it has a knack of doing that. But thats all about it - it has only got the potential to spring a upset win or two like flashes in the pan. On a consistent level/series basis it fails to retain the tempo against better teams.

The recent win over New Zealand and past such victories over Australia and other countries doesn’t suggest Bangladesh can actually win many matches in row and take the Cricket World Cup 2007 home. Bangladesh, in all probablity, will lose to SriLanka and India in its group matches without being able to move to the Super 8 stage.

This however is not a message to the Indian or SriLankan teams to take things easy. Apart from the occasional wins against bigger teams, Bangladesh also has won series against smaller teams like Zimbawe. The keyword therefore is - complacency. Gurading aginst that is utterly important. If India walks in to play minus that it will succeed in beating Bangladesh convincingly and with regularity.

Bangladesh has some seasoned campaigners and a few talented players. Razaaq and Mortaza are two canny bowlers, and as evdinced recently can snare even the most versatile batsmen. The pace bowling attack is further strengthened by Tapas Baisya, Shadat Hossain, and Syed Rasel.

The batsmen to watch out for is Sahriar Nafees Ahmed. Making debut for his country at 19, he proved his credentials against Australia by scoring 138 in April 2006. Tipped as the future captain, he is a great batting potential and asset for the team at 21. He along with Gulla (Javed Omar) present a sound opening challenge that no bowler could just take lightly.

The team has allrounders like Aftab Ahmed who has a healthy batting average of nearly 30 and has scored 92 against Zimbawe. But he has not scored well against Australia.

Mohammed Ashraful has solid statistics to back his abilities. But the only thing that dogs him is consistency. If he has the distinction of being the youngest century maker in tests, scoring a ton against Australia contributing to the historic victory of his team, and a defiant 158 in defeat against India, he also has been dropped from the squad on innumerable occasions. Talent wrapped with inconsistency - let’s see how he does in this Cricket World Cup 2007.

Captain Habibul Basher has the cricketing brains to guide his team to victory against better teams. Additionally, there are untested talents like Tamim Iqbal who have proved to be hard hitters of the ball.

All said and done Bangladesh has not much of a chance of going to the Super 8 stage, leave alone winning the Cricket World Cup 2007 - a bunch of very young players notwithstanding.