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? 🙂