World Cup Cricket 2015

I believe the upcoming tri-series involving Australia, India and England will give us a fair idea about how India is going to perform in the World Cup. Would be happy if the likes of Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan pull up their socks and perform. Indian bolwing unit has always been dicey.

They should not even be in the side imo, especially Rohit: if they're not daft, they're just too much more show than real go. That's the problem with the whole batting line-up, good though it is, overall, on batting wickets. At least the bowlers are hardworking triers: the batsmen are almost celebrities first and cricketers second, in terms of their actual 'performances' (more theatrics, less substance) and capabilities. IMO.

I guess Indian cricket culture just priveleges batting, that's why, since it involves less arduous physical labour, and since it is easy to appreciate numerous fours and sixes over occasional wickets and/or economy-rates.

But yeah, this is a very competitive side for away ODI-s. On paper. Hoping for the best, but I keep fearing they'll get psyched-out/distracted by the mania/bukhaar that always sweeps over the Indian media and advertisers and public before and during the World Cup. At least the internal politics will not be as nasty as it was in the lead-up to the West Indies world cup, under Dravid and Chappel. Which is why the SA world cup campaign under Ganguly was so thrilling to me. On really tough pitches, too!

bump..

Anyone followed Ireland - Westindies? Comments please.

Sunil Narine's absence resulted in their loss against Ireland.

WI fielding was very very poor!

Just back after seeing A B Devilliers fireworks. He took the WI bowlers literally to the cleaners. Scored 162 no out. SA scored the highest score ever in the world cup 408/5. Unbelievable hitting by the SA captain. The WI bowlers didn't have any clue as to where to bowl to the genius. It seemed like ABD was seeing the ball like a football. The man missed the fastest century in the world cup by couple of balls. 30 runs were scored in the last over. Pheww.

West Indies succumbs to their and world cup's biggest defeat by 247 runs. The team which was so high on last match Gayle heroics just literally fell flat on their face today with the batting crumbling like six ball pins. WI depended so much on Gayle to fire and he turned out a damp squib.

Today's match showed what a defeat could do to a team and what a win could do to a team.

The first match of the Quarter finals is turning out to be interesting. The match between Sri Lanka and South Africa was expected to be a cracker of a game, however with 9 wickets already down for Sri Lanka and only 127 runs on board with close to 30 overs bowled, it seems an uphill task for the Lankans to score runs. Some tight leash bowling by SA.

Again Sl has to depend heavily on Sangakarra to hold the fort. Final adieu to Mahela jayawardane who could not make any impact in this match as the rest of SL matches in league stage. The match has been taken away from SL. It waits to be seen if SA will live up with the Chokers tag during the run chase.

Any one agree that it was 90% fated for India to get not an inch beyond a thrashing in the semi-finals, since neither they nor the BCCI, obviously, (nor for that matter the wider cricket 'public') were ever going to be 'good enough' on Australian pitches, even if these were made a fair bit lower, drier and slower?

It beggars belief that a Suresh Raina is given such a long rope in this team (with which the predictable self-hanging in Australia was always the only possibility) or that a Ravindra Jadeja can be batted ahead of R Ashwin (a test match centurion with a proper all-rounder's test batting average, and much better player of fast bowling) or that Virat Kohli is to be the next captain..., no?

The IPL is proving to be the utter undermining of Indian test and one-day cricket, even in terms of TV trp-s, let alone away-from-home results which have been horrendous on 2 successive tours of England and Australia each, with nearly every Test match lost thrashingly and abjectly, since its advent. India, perennially weak away from home, have NEVER fared this poorly, have been this out-of-depth in its entire cricketing history as under this BCCI avatar and under this captain Dhoni, away from home.

One got the feeling most of the tens of millions who got so excited over this World Cup 'campaign' did so just out of a commercialised nationalism, and an even greater love of advertised celebrity (e.g., Virat Kohli and his girlfriend, Dhawan and his moustache, jadeja and his beard, Dhoni and his cool, small-town boy made VERY/enviably SO! wealthy...) not for for any love or understanding of (Indian) cricket.

The BCCI is responsible for this radical dumbing-down of Indian cricket culture, via the IPL and the utter greed and shallowness that fuels it.

That countries with populations smaller than several Indian cities and financial resources many times smaller too continue to dish out such thrashings to the Indian cricket team as in the WC semi-s, even in ODI-s, let alone Tests....is a very disturbing comment, one feels.

As long as the TV-rights holders, and the advertisers, made their money....that is all the BCCI and ICC under its dominance seems to care about. In these terms this has been a superb WC for India and everyone else.

Indian cricket will continue to be laughable in its wealth and fanatical nationalism and its celebrity-hero-players, given that that will continue to be left unsubstantiated by a correspondingly good and consistent team. How the sporting-great Aussie public, players and press must find it farcical, albeit lucrative for them! Well, at least Pakistan was terrible and England even worse.

Apologies for the rhetorical rant. I must be getting old: bring back Mohinder Amarnath, Kapil Dev, VVS Laxman, Srinath and Dravid, I seem to feel.

No need to be apological at all. In a line borrowed from the famous Marathi literary genius, late Shri. Pu.La. Deshpande & in reference to Mumbaikars and Indians in general, "Cricket is a game more about discussion and not so much about playing." (loosely translated)
Apparently the latest match seems to have taken that away too from the average Cricket enthusiast. Its like the world cup got over before it began.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 28, 2015 ---

Everyone knew I guess. Except people get all superstitious than rational when it comes to cricket. They even fear to speak about it cause they dont want to jinx it..!