by Akseli Pitkänen It doesn't get any bigger than this. The 10 best teams competing against each other at the English county cricket grounds. Some might even say, "What are you even doing with your life if you're not following the Cricket World Cup?". It's a spectacle, believe me. But the game isn't always about power hitting we've seen these last few years. It's about being ahead of the opponent one at a time. The best are out there and they want their share. West Indies with the Universe Boss, New Zealand with the Captain Cool. Australia with the Cheaters, kidding. Australia with the Dynamic Duo. India with the best top order one would like, except if you ask England. South Africa with the pace attack, Afghanistan with the best spinner around this planet. Pakistan with their odd but lovely bowling. Sri Lanka with deadly yorkers Malinga and finally Bangladesh with their cheeky little strong spinners. England vs South Africa - The 30th May match everyone waited for South Africa won the toss and elected to bowl. Tahir's 2nd ball magic but then a wise 100 partnership. 54, 51, 57. England throwing their starts away before Stokes bats through and scores a neat 89 off 79, hauling England over 300. Amla was hit on the head off a rapid Archer bouncer. Yep, this tells you that England is fighting hard. As with the Proteas, good starts but not big scores. 68, 13, 11, 50, 24 and 11. All out for 207 and England win the opening match by a resounding 104 runs. Pakistan vs West Indies: The 35.2 over ODI Windies bowlers were all over the Pakistani batsmen. Andre Russell, who's known more for his batting, was bang, bang. Holder went bang, bang, bang and Thomas beat the lot with a quality 4-wicket haul. And when you're all out for 105 in an ODI, that's that, folks. Amir picked three wickets in vain as Chris Gayle and Nicholas Pooran steered WI to victory with a run rate near 8. New Zealand vs Sri Lanka; Another one-sided encounter If WI was great, then NZ was tremendous. Lockie Ferguson and Matt Henry were spot on. There was some resistance from Kusal and Thisara Perera with 29 and 27. The real "captain's innings" came from Karunaratne with an unbeaten 52. Otherwise NZ bowlers were on top. Hence 136 all out was the total. Guptill and Munro played extraordinarily. 137/0 in 16 overs with a RR near 8.5. No bowler got anything from the wicket. It was as if NZ openers played on a different surface. Afghanistan vs Australia; Warner is back in business The Afghan openers were back in the hut in no time. Afghanistan fought hard against a big cricket nation but the inevitable was against them. Zadran hit 51 but no one went above it. 207 all out was a modest total, but still something to bowl at. When Finch cracked 66 off 49, there was no coming back for Afghanistan. Warner hit a lovely 89 not out as Australia motored to 209/3. Bangladesh vs South Africa; The better all-round performance turns up tops Batting 1st, Bangladesh hit well widely. Scores of 16, 42, 75, 78, 21, 46* and 26. These scores decided that even as one batsman got out back to the pavilion, one came into the crease with determination to bat another important knock. One by one, innings by innings, Bangladesh took the game away from SA. A strong start from Soumya Sarkar followed by a match-defining partnership from Shakib al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim set the tone. 331 became the target. SA batsmen too had starts but scores were lower. 23, 45, 62, 38, 41, 45, 8, 10, 13* and 10* give the whole picture. South Africans were pinned back always whenever a partnership was just beginning to build. RRR was on the bad side and no one could beat the task. Thus the Tigers won by 21 runs. Pakistan vs England; Root, Buttler tons in vain Paki batsmen were like new man after the Windies loss. Everyone spent time at the crease. 44, 36, 63, 84, 55 showed the selectors that the right men are there in the line-up. English bowlers had few answers. The dropped catch off Hafeez proved to be the turning point, in favor of Pakistan. Target of 349 was always going to be a big challenge. Two men stood out. Root and Buttler. They hit brilliantly. The 1st centurion of the tournament, Root, set up the innings. Buttler continued his form with a 75-ball century. But the next ball was a tragedy: wicket. England were going down since. Pakistan won by 14 runs. Sri Lanka vs Afghanistan; Nuwan Pradeep special Top 3 of Sri Lanka batting did the damage. Captain Karunaratne played a vital role with Kusal Perera taking the ball and game away from seamers Dawlat Zadran and Hamid Hassan. 5 overs, 52-0. Set 1, SL. The batsmen hit Mujeeb, Nabi and Naib for runs but Nabi gets one wicket. Set 2, shared. Nabi takes 3 wickets in an over including Thirimanne for 25 and all of a sudden Afghanistan is on top. Afghanistan light the tower and bowl out SL for 201 from 144-1. Set 3, Afghanistan. Afghanistan need 187 as Duckworth Lewis comes into play. Openers hit the ball hard and bring momentum which is disturbed by three quick wickets. Set 4, shared. Furthermore Shahidi and Nabi fall but Naib and Najibullah Zadran have their bat talking. Set 5, shared. Pradeep comes for his metaphorically last quest. He wins the king Naib and the prince Rashid. Afghanistan fall like a pack of cards with Malinga, the spearhead, hitting bullseye. Set 6, SL; Match 2-1, or in cricketing terms, SL win by 34. South Africa vs India; The Relentless Rohit What am I to say to SA to wake up? 0 wins, 2 losses and you know this is the match you kinda have to win to get up there. But then you figure out, it's India or like in a commercial, Incredible India. Yeah, India was incredible, let's leave it that way. SA kept losing wickets at bad times and never got going. Top score of 42 from Chris Morris with a RR of 4.54. Game over. Dhawan and Kohli fell cheaply but you always knew you have to get all 10 wickets to win the game. Rohit, however, did what we know he can do. Play the innings, 1st settle in, then put away bad balls and then, just like that, give the ball some of your own magic. And that's what he did, plain and simple. Put together a classy unbeaten 122. Who needs more? 6 wicket win and you're up and running as an Indian. But as a Proteas fan, you're screaming and shouting in agony. But in all fairness, SA has been outplayed thrice. Simple, eh? Bangladesh vs New Zealand; The tight line finish You could call this script "If no Bangladeshi can, Shakib can". But that would end in a different Hollywood way, wouldn't it? Bangladeshi batsmen knew what they will face. Pace, pace, pace. Till some point, that threat was dealt with. But then the innings ended. For all but one, a name called Shakib. His 64 off 68 was immeasurable. But then the innings ended. Shakib took two crucial opening wickets. However, Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson were too good, even for Shakib. The bowling got them and the game came close. It was tight but you had the sense NZ will get over the line. And they did by 2 wickets, with Mitchell Santner scoring the winning boundary. Australia vs West Indies; The NCN show WI seamers were good. We've seen how precise they can be. They pick up wickets. Sometimes you need to congratulate the one batsman you're facing. You're banging them in, you're doing your best but with a bit of fortune your opponent almost gets a century batting at 8. That's what happened. Australia were 38/4 in big trouble. Was it that the bowlers were getting tired or the surface changed in the progress or even both? We will never know. Steven Smith played like a champion with his 73. Although it was NCN's 92 off 60 that stole the show. "He hit 'em clean, he hit 'em hard, still ringin' in my ears." 288 ao meant WI was still in it. Gayle was all over the place but in a bad way. Lbw, no! Lbw again, nope Gayle survives. Lbw 3rd time and this time it's a yes! Actually it was a no-ball but almost no one noticed. Poor umpiring. Hope laboured his way to a slow 68, Pooran a quick 40 and captain Holder tried to rescue his team with 51. Starc was there chipping in when most needed, bagging a five-for, courtesy some top-quality death bowling. NCN bowled poorly but he did his batting share and thus named man of the match. Australia won by 15 runs. 11th match: Pakistan vs Sri Lanka; 1st No Result. The match was called off, without a ball bowled. Points: Pak 1, SL 1 England vs Bangladesh; The Jason Roy Delight This game was about two men, Roy and Shakib. Both were part of one 100 partnership. Both were centurions. Roy blasted 153 off 121. Bairstow and him hit 128-0 in 19 overs. It took Roy 38 balls for 50, a further 54 to reach 100 and a staggering further 28 balls to get 150. On 135 off 117 he hit three sixes in a row and tried to hit a fourth consecutive one but that one went high in the air to extra cover. 153 (14×4, 5×6) off 121 nevertheless. Buttler and Plunkett had their own cameos as England managed a massive 386/6. "Is the new England back?", one may ask. It's needless to go into big details about Shakib. It was a lone man's warrior fight to a century but by then the question was rather what is the losing deficit than can BD win. He scored 121 (12×4, 1×6) off 119 deliveries, but unfortunately wasn't enough. Afghanistan vs New Zealand; Neesham, KW take the Blackcaps to 3 wins in a row Three Afghan batsmen played some shots but the others crawled. Hazratullah Zazai hit an opening 66 with Noor Ali Zadran but then Afghanistan fell in a quickie. Hashmatullah Shahidi batted on his own to an almost defendable score of 172 with his 59. Neesham was the pick of the bowlers with 5-31, his first five-wicket haul in one-day cricket. 1st ball and gone but after that NZ controlled the situation and when KW did some scoring all hope was lost for Afghanistan. His 79* was pure gold. India vs Australia; The Dominant Dhawan Sharma seems to have found his groove in the WC. Century last game and 57 in this. Brilliant strike rotation. It takes pressure off the other end which allows players like Dhawan to exploit on it. Shikhar made batting look easy. Most hits came entirely off the middle of the bat and you don't have to run for those. 16 fours in his 117 off 109. For India, like any side, it's important to rely on the top 3. When you have the likes of Kohli coming in after a shellacking amount of boundaries, it's easy to boss the game. Kohli certainly loves bossing. He made 82 against a top bowling side. India were hitting all over the park. 352-5, the total in the end. Despite hitting about run a ball, the Australians ended well and truly on the losing side. Good for next games that Smith got 69 and got back-to-back fifties. David Warner's 84-ball 56 was too slow for Australia's liking. Carey finished unbeaten on 55 and Australia were bowled out for 316 off the 50 overs. India won by 36 runs. 15th match: South Africa vs West Indies; 2nd No Result SA managed 29/2 after 7.3 overs, with Cottrell taking both scalps. SA and WI share the points, one apiece. 16th match: Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka, Washout #3 Yet another game called off without a ball bowled. Points: BD 1, SL 1
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6/26/2022 09:16:18 pm
Nice article! Thanks for sharing this informative post. Keep posting!
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