Cricket World Cup

Didn't the Zimbabwe spinner have rather good stats for his ten overs too?

Greenskin wrote:

Gayle comes to the party.215 in a world record ODI partnership for any wicket of 372 with Samuels against the Zimbo's, not the strongest attack in world cricket but some achievement none the less. Can't really imagine an England player doing something similar, hope i'm wrong though.

Sometimes its difficult to imagine the entire England team scoring 215

The tournament is coming to life now. South Africa's performance yesterday wasn't half bad and this mornings game between the hosts had everything you'd want in edge of the seat stuff.

Some interesting facts about AB de Villiers :-

Shortlisted for SA national hockey and football squads.
Captain of the SA junior rugby team.
Still holder of 6 national school swimming records.
Still the fastest 100m by a SA junior sprinter.
Member of the national junior Davis Cup team.
Was national u19 badminton champion.
Plays golf off scratch.

I expect it all went to feck when he discovered girlies.

Charlie Wood wrote:

The tournament is coming to life now. South Africa's performance yesterday wasn't half bad and this mornings game between the hosts had everything you'd want in edge of the seat stuff.

Some interesting facts about AB de Villiers :-

Shortlisted for SA national hockey and football squads.
Captain of the SA junior rugby team.
Still holder of 6 national school swimming records.
Still the fastest 100m by a SA junior sprinter.
Member of the national junior Davis Cup team.
Was national u19 badminton champion.
Plays golf off scratch.

I expect it all went to feck when he discovered girlies.

Something must have went wrong, because you can't call yourself an all round sportsman unless you excel at Croquet.

I think it's quite an important win for the Kiwis this morning. I actually awoke early to watch it...not early enough, obvo.

Something abait a monkey off the back. It'll stand them in good stead and means if they do meet again it'll likely be semi final in Auckland, rather than semi final in Oz somewhere.

sri lanka bowling a bit slow arent they?

Why don't they just come home now.....even if they do get through to the next round of matches they will have to play one of the big boys again and show us all again how inadequate they are......come home now and give us all a break.

Angry wrote:

sri lanka bowling a bit slow arent they?

They sure didn't bat a bit slow. I watched an hour or two last night and it changed the game when Sri Lanka brought their dibbly dobbly and spin bowlers on, England's batsmen seem to have no clue about consistently using good footwork to get down the pitch to them, in contrast to the great ODI/T20 batsmen who win matches for other countries. Root must have played well later on but 300 was always going to be very gettable bearing in mind the class of Sri Lanka's top order and the sameness of England's attack. Can't really see where England go from here, probably onto a plane sooner rather than later.

Can't feckin stand cricket tbh but a good mate of mine is in Lanka for the winter and he's gone to watch the cricket, he said that getting fairly drunk should make up for the battering he is expecting.

Iggy wrote:

Can't feckin stand cricket tbh but a good mate of mine is in Lanka for the winter and he's gone to watch the cricket, he said that getting fairly drunk should make up for the battering he is expecting.

Ah, the memories of the 1980's! We used to run a bus trip to the cricket at Taunton once a season and actually drank the bar dry at the ground on one occasion-there was a boozer close to the ground called the Turks Head and when we got there for the 11 o'clock opening time and pre match tipples, there were still about 20 people in there from the night before, paralytically pissed after an all night lock in! . Had a drinking competition with Nick Johns, a cricketing mate of mine, one year and he beat me by 19 pints and a whisky to 18 pints, the barsteward. Had to go to work the next day too- doesn't bear thinking about, couldn't do it now unfortunately.

looking forward to the season starting, i can get pissed on the boundary under the tree at our local club, without having to get pissed off at the shower of shite Argyle are

SA v Pakistan reaching a tasty conclusion at the minute...

Czarcasm wrote:

SA v Pakistan reaching a tasty conclusion at the minute...

Strange team Pakistan, can beat anyone on their day, couldn't beat Lewannick thirds on another.

Yet another humiliation coming for England.

Maybe they'll squeeze past the Banglas, maybe they won't (and given that we've just lost our fifth wicket, it doesn't look likely), but this is pathetic.

One of the Aussie commentators on TMS summed it up for me earlier when he said that he couldn't understand England's approach. Every other team is looking for a quick start to get runs in the bank and to give themselves a shot at making 400, regardless of their target. England are looking to scrape past 275 at a snails pace and are not giving themselves any leeway if things go wrong.

They really are feckin clueless.

England just doesn't have the players with the skill sets required for the modern one-day forms of the game - and maybe never will.

The humiliation almost complete.

Moores out, Morgan out, KP in.

Clueless and doomed from the very start, in fact long before this competition. There needs to be total root and branch clear out of the management and coaching people, Graves has made a good start by mooting the possible return of KP, a warning slap if ever there was one for Downton and the other mediocre clowns currently running the show. Well done to Bangladesh-they played better cricket than England, which just about says it all as regards the current standing of us in ODI cricket.

Greenskin wrote:

Moores out, Morgan out, KP in.

Clueless and doomed from the very start, in fact long before this competition. There needs to be total root and branch clear out of the management and coaching people, Graves has made a good start by mooting the possible return of KP, a warning slap if ever there was one for Downton and the other mediocre clowns currently running the show. Well done to Bangladesh-they played better cricket than England, which just about says it all as regards the current standing of us in ODI cricket.

Agreed. Also, Bell is not an opener and nearly always gets out when you really need him to produce.

Moores reminds me of Ridsdale. All talk but nothing other than bullshit.

Another defeat for England......I was surprised that Boycott was able to speak afterwards about the result, without him getting hysterical over it......I think he doesn't care anymore......given up worrying about such trash as England serve up......how on earth did we beat Scotland (only just) that would have been the ultimate horror.

The whole setup needs reviewing from the very top of the ecb to grsss roots, desicions have to made people have to go and unlike the last one after the ashes no blaming one guy and moving a coach to another job within the setup and thinking that will do.

If you aren't a Sky slave.....cricket hardly exists for the rest of us.

This sad affair is down to the chasing of Sky's mega bucks.....serves them right.

zyph wrote:

If you aren't a Sky slave.....cricket hardly exists for the rest of us.

This sad affair is down to the chasing of Sky's mega bucks.....serves them right.

sky dont pick the england teams or train them they just show the games

zyph wrote:

If you aren't a Sky slave.....cricket hardly exists for the rest of us.

This sad affair is down to the chasing of Sky's mega bucks.....serves them right.

There's always TMS - and if there is a better double act than Aggers and Sir G commentating on any sport currently I am yet to hear them.

As for the rest: sack them (coaches, selectors etc) all.

I actually believe we have stacks of talent, particularly batting (Root, Ali, Buttler, Taylor, Hails are all plenty good enough), and should be able to compete. The fact that we clearly cannot is down to selection and (lack of) leadership.

Make Bopara captain, bring back KP and find a couple of all-rounders (maybe Ali and Bopara would suffice) and some bowers worthy of the name (sorry Broad and Anderson - your time has been and gone) and we'd be fine.

Instead of that we have what we have and it is nowhere near being good enough to compete as they have proven time and time again.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

zyph wrote:

If you aren't a Sky slave.....cricket hardly exists for the rest of us.

This sad affair is down to the chasing of Sky's mega bucks.....serves them right.

There's always TMS - and if there is a better double act than Aggers and Sir G commentating on any sport currently I am yet to hear them.

As for the rest: sack them (coaches, selectors etc) all.

I actually believe we have stacks of talent, particularly batting (Root, Ali, Buttler, Taylor, Hails are all plenty good enough), and should be able to compete. The fact that we clearly cannot is down to selection and (lack of) leadership.

Make Bopara captain, bring back KP and find a couple of all-rounders (maybe Ali and Bopara would suffice) and some bowers worthy of the name (sorry Broad and Anderson - your time has been and gone) and we'd be fine.

Instead of that we have what we have and it is nowhere near being good enough to compete as they have proven time and time again.

A very damning indictment of all those involved in this debacle has been the fresh and vibrant approach of the Irish team in the competition. Most of their players are either club cricketers in Ireland or play comparatively minor roles in the English county game, which would suggest that your view that England have ample talent is 100% correct. The fact that England have done reasonably well in test cricket [the 5-0 drubbing in Australia aside] and in the 20/20 format in recent years would also seem to indicate that the problem is one of attitude and good preparation/decision making rather than ability-it needs to be addressed very quickly and very thoroughly because the England record at successive world cups dating back to the mid 1990's is nothing less than a disgraceful embarrassment.