On the u19 World Cup qualifier …

Sorry, this posting is about 1 month late, as I was not writing before.

About two and a half years ago, I wrote this post on this blog that the ICC is missing an u19 qualifier tournament. It is good to see that the ICC finally realized it themselves.

If this tournament had not been in place, the ICC couldnt have done better than second guessing. They would have given 2 spots to Europe, and 1 each to the other regions. That would have meant that the following teams would have qualified: Ireland, Netherlands, Canada, PNG, Uganda and Afgahnistan. As it turned out, due to the qualifier, there was no qualification from Africa on the account of them being too weak. and Netherlands were not able to make it either, primarily becuase their 2 super star batsmen who are more than half their batting were missing. Whatever the excuse might be, the stronger teams ended up qualifying and the regions also got a sense of where they stand. Netherlands should however, look at why their best players were available, and that too at this level for only 2 weeks !

Now on to the future of such a tournament, the fact that almost 12 players vanished from Afghan and Uganda squads will create a lot of trouble for such a tournament to be held in what are traditionally known as developed countries. I was actually appalled at what happenned, especially in the Afghan coach also ran away. Now Uganda was pretty bad in the tournament so you can suspect that they might have selected players who were not thinking of a cricket future, but just paid their way through and were planning on running away anyway. But Afghan team, it was runners up ! And their coach ran away too !

Uganda will find it difficult now to tour countries like Aus, USA or Canada again. So will other african countries. But what made it very appalling was that these were kids! u19 players !. Its not unthinkable that this would happen, but at u19 level its probably the first of its kind. ICC could have done a better job policing the teams, especially since Sierra Leone were not allowed especially for these apprehensions.

Hong Kong, USA and Canada all had only 4 players each born in that country. Others were born elsewhere. Hopefully the players migrated to these countries in their early years and represent somewhat of the development level of that country. Personally, I was rooting for Netherlands to qualify instead of HK, becuase I knew that they were much stronger in reality if Kervezee and Allema were playing. But then again who knows, maybe these 2 would have founf something more important to do in the actual world cup as well instead of playing for their team. I guess, to each, his own.

On Zimbabwe XI beating Kenya …

Since Zimbabwe was drafted into the intercontinental cup, everyone was on thier case for not fielding their full team. The common argument at that time was that Zimbabwe will field essentially their full team, lose, and then say its just their second string team. My thinking was also the same.

But time proved that Zimbabwe full team might be too strong for the intercontinental cup. The current Zim XI team, in terms of batting, only had Sibanda from the front runners in the main team. There was no H. Masakadza, Vermulen, Taibu, Taylor, Chigambura,Utseya, Price or Coventry. If Kenya is expecting to get into the full fold of ICC, then they need to perform like this against A team of top sides, not Zimbabwe !

2-3 years ago, Kenya nearly beat Zimbabwe in a 5 match series. But Kenya overall have not been impressive, either in their A team, or their u19 team. You think about the fact taht Uganda was the best u19 team from Africa, and in the World Qualifier league, they were the almost the worst. Kenya was not even runner up in Africa u19 qualifier . They need to pick up their adminsitration, as just talk of tremendous talent is not enough. They have enough funds I think now to nourish the talent, and at least be super competitive at u19 level on the global stage.

I am reminded of a player called Nolan Clarke who appeared in the Netherlands team in the 1996 WC at the age of 47. He had been a West Indian player from the 70s.  While he did hit Shaun Pollock for an amazing six, I just hope in 10 years time Kenya is still not relying of their star batsman called Steve Tikolo.

And they are naturally atheletic and well built. why cant they find quick pace bowlers !!

Reviving the blog

Hi All,

After yet another long hiatus from the blog, I will start reviving it it now with new content from news and opinions. Certain things have changed in the last year and a half, but unfortunately, many have remained the same. The topics that we discussed before I see being discussed in many places now.

So it will be interesting to start off the blog again. However, the real excitement was about the the readers and commenters and the different points of view that I got. Hopefully that can go back to the same level as well.

After the Hiatus….

This was the longest break I took from this blog. It was just a lot of work commitments happenning at the same time in the last 3 months. Anyway, I am back now, but quite out of touch with what has happenned in the world of non test cricket. Will probably need to catch up a little, or perhaps, others can bring me up to speed

News: Its happenning….

The ICC is one signature off from cutting the number of teams by 2 in the next world cup…… in addition to that, the suggested format is one crappy one, with a team making winning all games at the same level as the team beating only the associates (plus Ban and Zim)!

In 1996, I remember that SA were unbeaten in 1 pool, while WI, barely made it through after losing to even Kenya….. in the qtr final, WI beat SA….. that was SA’s “one bad day”…… there was some discussion about this format being not the best, and the ICC went forward with a newer format where the first round was not as “predictable”

But I guess, now we want the predictability back……

Stats: Nearest Victories for Associates vs Test Countries….

I have compiled a list of the 11 closest games that featured associates and they came out losers by a small margin. Please feel free to suggest any games that I may have missed which were closer, and also give your pick of the 3 closest games from this list. Please note that sometimes a game becomes very competitive at some point during the match (e.g. Netherlands v England 1996, Namibia v England 2003 WC, Kenya v Aus 2003 WC), but I did not include those games, as they eventually fizzled out for a one sided ending. Also, this list has included Srilanka (1975-1981), Zimbabwe (1983-1992) and Bangladesh (1985-2000)

1987 – NZ beat Zim by 3 runs
NZ – 242/7 in 50 overs
Zim – 239/10 in 49.4 overs (Houghton 142*, Butchart 54)

2007 – WI beat Scotland by 4 wkts with 1 ball left
Sco – 152/7 in 30 overs
WI – 165/6 in 29.5 overs (target 165 in 30 overs)
WI needed 30 off 3, 14 off 2, and eventually 9 off the last over. This is the closest, in my opinion (after Zim’s defeat to NZ by 3 runs in 1987) that an associate came to beating a Test team and lost.

2002-Australia beat Kenya by 5 wkts, with 5 balls left
Ken – 204/9 in 50 overs
Aus – 205/5 in 49.1 overs
Not many people know about this match, and it looks quite amazing given that Australia were not only the world champions at that time, but they would go on to win the 2003 world cup as well, with ease, within 6 months of this game. Australia needed 19 runs off 12 balls with Shane Watson and Brett Lee playing. Ongondo bowled an 18 ball over, and the game was sealed. I dont remember how it became so tight for the Aussies, but both Martin Suji (10-1-22-0) and Maurice Odumbe (10-1-28-0) had a lot to do with this.

2007 – Bangladesh beat Canada by 13 runs
Ban – 278/5 in 50 overs
Can – 265/7 in 50 overs (Barnett 77, Bilcliff 93, Mulla 44)

Sri Lanka beat Zimbabwe by 3 wkts with 4 balls left
Zim – 312/4 in 50 overs
Sri – 313/7 in 49.2 overs
I remember this being on the same day as the Pakistan/WI opening match in the 1992 world cup, but it still got a lot of attention in Pakistan. Zimbabwe batted first to pile up a total, that nobody had chased down successfully before that. In fact, Sri lanka needed 100 runs of 11 overs with 5 wkts left in the end, but a 61 ball 88 by Ranatunga saw them through.

1999 – SA beat Kenya by 24 runs
SA – 220/7 in 50 overs
Ken – 196/10 in 48.1 overs (Tikolo 67, Odoyo 41)
Kenya needed 25 runs off 19 balls with 3 wkts left when odoyo was dismissed followed by a collapse for 1 run.

2006 – Bangladesh beat Kenya by 20 runs
Ban – 231/10 in 45.5 overs
Ken – 211/10 in 49.2 overs (C Obuya 45, Mishra 48)
Kenya needed 24 runs off 2 overs with 3 wkts remaining in the end, but lost all wkts for 4 runs.

2002 – WI beat Kenya by 29 runs
WI – 261/6 in 50 overs
Ken – 232/10 in 49.1 overs
Kenya needed 44 runs off the last 24 balls, with Tikolo batting at 93, but they were all out within the next 15 runs.

1999 – Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh by 3 wkts with 3 balls left
Ban – 257/5 in 50 overs (Mehrab Hussain 101)
Zim – 261/7 in 49.3 overs
Zimbabwe needed 15 to win off 16 balls when Alistar Campbell was dismissed at 97. Bangladesh could not apply enough pressure on the tail to take more wickets.

1999 – Zimbabwe beat Kenya by 3 wkts with 4 balls left
Ken – 199/8 in 50 overs
Zim – 200/7 in 49.2 overs
Zim needed 3 runs from 10 balls, but some tight bowling by Tikolo saw him pick up 2 wickets, with still the 3 runs to get from the last over. The winning runs were scored by Murray Goodwin who made 76, and it was a fumble that saw them make the winning runs.

2003 – Zimbabwe beat Kenya by 5 wkts, with 6 balls left
Ken – 225/6 in 50 overs
Zim – 230/5 in 49 overs
Zimbabwe needed 12 off 12 balls with 5 wkts left, and for some reason, Tony Suji was chosen to bowl the critical 49th. And Heath Streak wrapped it up for Zimbabwe by hitting some big blows.

I have not included one other game in this list, in which Kenya lost to Bangladesh by 2 wkts in 2006 (24 balls to spare), and another in which India beat Bangladesh by 4 wkts and 10 balls to spare in 1998. There was no reason in particular for excluding these games, except for keeping this article from becoming a never ending one

Opinion: ICC’s ODI ranking system…..

Current ICC’s ODI ranking system only includes match results, and the strength of the teams. It does not cater to the margin or manner of the matchup. Scotland’s defeat to WI on the second last ball of the match was essentially the same as some other associate losing to WI by 10 wkts or 150 runs.

There is something quite wrong with this approach. FIFA, in their rankings update in 1999 used to take margins, importance of matches, regional strength and home advantage into account. in 2006, they removed some of these from their system because the rankings were not coming out as accurate.

However, Cricket is not Football. Cricket as a regular calendar and at least the ODI test teams HAVE to be play each other regularly. Even for the associates, to have an ODI status, there is a limit to the teams they would get as opposition. So the reasons why margins were kicked out of FIFA ranking system do not apply to cricket.

ICC’s ODI ranking system should be upgraded so that losers can also get points (and essentially get on the table).

The simplest method that I had in mind for this was to award the points to the loser based on this:
1 point for getting 60% of the target, or defending the score till the 30th over (60% of the overs)
2 points for getting 80% of the target, or defending the score till the 40th over (80% of the overs)

The winner will get 5 points for winning the game, and in addition to that, they can take the above mentioned 2 points if they manage to either chase before 30 overs, or dismiss the opposition before they even reach 60% of the target. Of course, the team’s relative strength should still be taken into account, and it would not be a bad idea to take the home advantage into account as well.

In fact, it would be interesting to apply this ranking system to the last 2 years of international cricket and see what kind of a table we get.

Opinion: Lets not discount Namibia U19….

After reading up on their squad, I realized that they have 4 players in their side who have played first class cricket, and 2 were even in the recent game against UAE, with David Botha making a century.

The other 2, Sean Silver and van der Westhuzen, have played the first class games against SA provincial opposition, and Sean Silver, who is 17, did quite well against one of them.

They are in the same group as Nepal, Aus and Sri. So far, we have only focussed on Nepal as having a chance to cause an upset….. maybe we should not discount Namiabia either.

Btw, if they beat Nepal, would that be an upset?

News: Whats up with Synman?

80% of Namibia’s total!!

This is the 3rd game in the last one month when Namibia folded meekly in their first innings, then fouhgt back with the ball, and the second innings total was commendable. However, this time around it was a one man show, as after Snyman, who is 194*, the next highest score in Namibia’s second innings is 13.

Opinion: Rod Lyall’s article about reduction of associates in WC….

I came across this article in CricketEurope today. I realized that there is still a misconception about the exact nature of what happenned.

First of all, the following lines are in bad spirit:

“But Pakistan’s spoiled superstars were beaten fair and square by a dedicated Irish squad who were the better team on the day, and no amount of fiddling with the rules will save them if they and their masters don’t face up to the lessons of that match.”

One has to keep in mind that Pakistan was one of the 3 countries that actually supported the ODI status for the top 6 associates, and also convinced the others along with NZ and SA to this change. Secondly, singling out Pakistan, and refering to ‘masters’ is in fact objectionable. Also, singling out Pakistan, when it is very clear (and it should be VERY clear after the whole ‘monkey’ affair) about who calls the shots in ICC and International cricket, is also objectionable.

Pakistan can talk about a change in format all that it wants, but it would not really matter. It wouldnt matter even if they were the sole hosts. The loss to the ICC due to an early exit of Pakistan is no more than the loss it would face if it were SA, Eng or Aus who got elimated.

I can give it to anyone in writing, that even if Pakistan had been knocked out like it was, but India had made it all the way to the final, it would have been touted as a very succesful world cup. Secondly, when the Big8 talk about weak teams, they mention Zim and Bangladesh in the same breath. Its not that the criticism is ONLY against Ireland making it through BECAUSE its an associate. The criticism is against the concept that teams that actually have no chance of making the semis are pitched into a 28 game league.

I have discussed this topic and the possible formats etc elsewhere, so I will not go into that here. This posting was just to point out my surprise at Rod Lyall’s article, who usually is wonderful and insightful to read.