2007 Cricket World Cup (West Indies) thread

[Boodles]

OZ adapt to pitches better than anyone

 

[NaZKuL]

OZ adapt to pitches better than anyone

Do they need to adapt?

 

[Omac]

I only just came across this article, so I'm sorry about the posting of news past. It just expresses the outrage I felt so well!

Red letter Day.......... by Mike Haysman

Posted on 9 April 2007

Get your diary out. Flip back a page or two and select the date 7th April 2007. Now grab a writing instrument. Make sure it is not a pencil. It MUST be an instrument capable of releasing permanent ink. Make it red ink.
In the biggest letters you can manage, scribble in capitals: BRAVE CRICKET IS DEAD AND BURIED.

The 7th April is a watershed day regarding that phrase. You should never hear it uttered again!

I despised that tag after first hearing it when Mickey Arthur took over the coaching reigns. It smacked of a statement made for the sake of it to simply grab some media attention.

It was bandied around by all and sundry to the extent that a quote from the Proteas camp that did not include the words ‘brave cricket’ was rare.

I don’t know about you but I have seen little evidence of it put into action. I certainly did not see one iota of it in play against Bangladesh. What I did see was a pathetic performance.

At least Smith was man enough to admit it.

What has happened to all those monotonous comments from Arthur that the magic formula to winning the World Cup was to step on the gas and up the tempo when batting in those middle overs?

Getting too far ahead of yourself is always a dangerous thing. It is so easy to make statements but to ‘walk the talk’ is a very different story.

Smart cricket is the way to go. Not brave cricket.

Soft cricket is also a recipe for disaster and that was proved in Guyana. It was astounding to witness the number of soft dismissals and I defy anyone who looks closely at the modes of dismissal, not to come to the conclusion that every single termination of an innings was soft.

The bowlers with willow in hand can be forgiven to a certain extent but the batsmen can hang their heads in shame. Was that a performance that represents a nation with an extremely proud sporting heritage?

I think not. Only Nel, with his lion hearted and typically manic performance can stand tall.

To be honest, I am sick and tired of meaningless rhetoric emanating from the South African camp. It is time for them to say nothing and perform.

They have successfully managed to complicate their World Cup enormously through a shockingly disappointing day.

A day when it was obvious that they did not want to be there.

Now it is compulsory that they ‘man up’. It is time for the internal decision makers to control their destiny.

Things are clearly fragmented behind the scenes with immature actions of some individuals clouding the issue. They must galvanize for the remaining weeks of the tournament and deliver to restore trust and pride.

A void of commitment, as observed recently, will fuel outrage.

Never in my wildest dreams did I consider that I would witness a game in this World Cup where Bangladesh would outclass the number one team in the world in every department. The harsh reality is that it happened.

I just hope that every single individual in the South African squad has been shaken to his foundations and vowed and declared both privately and collectively, that this spineless performance will not be repeated.

Should it happen again, the backbone of support from afar will be irrevocably fractured.

http://www.supercricket.co.za/default.asp?id=5258&des=sportstalk

 

[Abe]

abe im sorry but lets see the most rounded side does not include aus? the team that has something like its last 26 world cup matches and looks set for another world win

I did not say they were not the best team, just not the most rounded on these wickets. Ideally one would need two spinners on these wickets, not one. Aus have one of the best bowling attacks at the world cup and the best batting attack at the WC. NZ and SL have a better mix of bowlers. That does not make them better then Aus as Aus's batting is better then NZ and SL.

this is of course if we beat england once again if its a slow pitch we out

The wicket is actually a fast bouncy wicket. Eng are battling with the conditions just as much as us BTW.

 

[Abe]

Its the one that swings into the batsmen.

The doorsa goes straight on or even moves away whereas the stock off spin delivery turns in.

BTW: Murali's doorsa was banned at one point that is until they changed the rules to be 15 degrees.

 

[Abe]

Ye good way of saying the obvious, besides he forgot Sangakara... the best wicky in the competition.

Sangakara is good. It's difficult to say that he is the best. Gilly is really good and boucher has the best strike rate of all batsmen in the WC(Boucher SR = 138, Sangakkara = 75). Yeah, I know boucher dropped that catch the other day but has also taken some blinders. You need to look at each side and ask what their keeper is required to do. Gilly opens, has a strike rate of 100 and has scored more runs then Sangakkara. I also don't remember seeing him drop a catch.

 

[.geek]

Can someone explain the "d00sra" to me?

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/****ra

Its the one that swings into the batsmen.[/QUOTE]

It's a ball an off spinner bowls that spins the opposite direction to his orthodox delivery.

Off spin: Left -> Right
Do0sra: Right -> Left

The bowler delivers the ball with the same finger action as a normal off break, but cocks the wrist so the back of the hand faces towards the batsman. This gives the ball spin in the opposite direction to an off break, causing it to spin from the leg side to the off side to a right-handed batsman.

The Do0sra is the off-spinner's equivalent of the leg-spinner's googly, which spins in the opposite direction to the leg spinner's stock ball. In principle it is possible for a left-arm orthodox spinner (whose action mirrors that of an off-spinner) to bowl the Do0sra, which in this case would turn from off to leg. This has not yet been seen in international cricket, although the England left-armer Monty Panesar claims to have bowled it in domestic matches.

 

[Omac]

WTH tournament has Manthorpe been watching?

Time to get some sleep by Neil Manthorp

Posted on 15 April 2007

The night before South Africa played the West Indies at the Grenada National Stadium a group of players, apparently, was out at a nightclub in downtown St George's. The exact time varies but at approximately 3.00am a serious-looking man walked up to one the players, slipped a handgun out from his belt and held it to the side of one of the players' heads.
"Best you go get some sleep now," he growled.

These were not South African players! Apparently, a large number, if not the majority, of the West Indian team which needed to beat South Africa to stay alive in the tournament were out doing what they do best - partying.

And, for one supporter, the sight of them dancing and drinking just six and a half hours before the start of the match was more than he could stomach.

So he sent him home in emphatic fashion.

The tale just won't go away. I've heard it from so many different sources that you can't help imagining there must be some truth in it. If there is, it puts South Africa's problems into very sharp perspective.

"This generation of players has absolutely no conscience," says a senior and well-respected commentator in the Caribbean. "They don't care about results, winning and losing is all the same to them just as long as they are being well-paid and enjoying all the trappings of being a West Indian cricketer."

South Africa's cricketers, on the other hand, probably started encountering problems in Guyana because they are over commited, not under commited. One of their biggest gripes was that the practise facilities were hopeless. One is left with the distinct impression that the West Indies players would rather be doing anything else than training when you watch them in the nets. The bowling is half-hearted and the batting generates into slogging after just a few minutes. In everything they do, the players look like excessively quick movement would be beneath their dignity.

Whatever happens against England on Tuesday, it seems appropriate to point out that Graeme Smith and the players have given their all. They have trained hard and remained as focused as anybody could ever do in such a dreadfully conceived, painfully elongated tournament. They may have had their disagreements, but each and every individual has been able to remember why they are here in the Caribbean. All of them.

It is hard to imagine what the consequences might be if South Africa's cricketers behaved like the West Indians. The desire of their fans to see them succeed fuels the players' determination and, whether they realise it or not, even the criticism they receive from the travelling media (and those shamelessly doing the job from an armchair at home) is inspired because they care. Everybody wants the team to do well, and the players, professionally urged by coach Mickey Arthur, respond to that collective desire.

The reaction of West Indian supporters is pitiful. Careworn and almost completely anaesthetised to the pain of defeat by a decade of under-achievement, they have been turning away from cricket for years.

Perhaps that is the reason the current generation of young players are more interested in nightclubs than nets - that's where their contemporaries are instead of playing or supporting cricket.

South Africa's plight seemed pretty gloomy after defeats to Bangladesh and New Zealand, but Jacques Kallis put an almost ludicrously positive spin on things on Saturday evening when he informed the world that South Africa were just three "big perfomances away" from becoming world champions. "We'd have taken that before the tournament started," he said. The odds are against it: no team has won the World Cup having lost three games. South Africa would be the first.

A more immediate sense of relief and consolation, if you need one, can be gleaned from the thought that Proteas supporters will never, ever be frustrated enough to send a philandering player to bed at gunpoint. (Unless they wanted to mug him, perhaps.) There is, and will always be, more than enough commitment to guarantee that.

http://www.supercricket.co.za/default.asp?id=5270&des=sportstalk

The highlighted sentence & paragraph is not borne out by results.

The excuses are starting, "painfully elongated tournament" & "practise facilities were hopeless"

 

[JK8]

Sangakara is good. It's difficult to say that he is the best. Gilly is really good and boucher has the best strike rate of all batsmen in the WC(Boucher SR = 138, Sangakkara = 75). Yeah, I know boucher dropped that catch the other day but has also taken some blinders. You need to look at each side and ask what their keeper is required to do. Gilly opens, has a strike rate of 100 and has scored more runs then Sangakkara. I also don't remember seeing him drop a catch.

Its not just about catching and batting, if you remember the guy is lightning quick behind when stumping!!

Lol Bouchers was bad hahahahaha!!!

 

[JK8]

Its the one that swings into the batsmen.

It's a ball an off spinner bowls that spins the opposite direction to his orthodox delivery.

Off spin: Left -> Right
Do0sra: Right -> Left[/QUOTE]

True, it was one or the other!

 

[BobbyMac]

If SA wants to do well in their next world cup, then it's time to groom some bowlers. Spin and variety pacers with swing is of utmost importance. When last has SA bowled out a quality side?

 

[killadoob]

I did not say they were not the best team, just not the most rounded on these wickets. Ideally one would need two spinners on these wickets, not one. Aus have one of the best bowling attacks at the world cup and the best batting attack at the WC. NZ and SL have a better mix of bowlers. That does not make them better then Aus as Aus's batting is better then NZ and SL.

The wicket is actually a fast bouncy wicket. Eng are battling with the conditions just as much as us BTW.

we play awesome on a fast bouncy wicket

our bowlers like it because we are a pace attack and our batmens love the ball coming on to the bat

if we play on this track we will beat england and could possibly win the world on a fast bouncy wicket

give us a slow wicket we out

 

[JK8]

we play awesome on a fast bouncy wicket

our bowlers like it because we are a pace attack and our batmens love the ball coming on to the bat

if we play on this track we will beat england and could possibly win the world on a fast bouncy wicket

give us a slow wicket we out

Ye but what happen in the last WC, they other teams trained and adapted to SA conditions and they kicked SA out.

 

[JK8]

If SA wants to do well in their next world cup, then it's time to groom some bowlers. Spin and variety pacers with swing is of utmost importance. When last has SA bowled out a quality side?

They unfortunately not strike bowlers, they "economical"

 

[chiskop]

Ye but what happen in the last WC, they other teams trained and adapted to SA conditions and they kicked SA out.

Err, no. Last time our exit was entirely self-inflicted.

I'm really worried that we're preparing to meet Australia in a semi-final and will again find some cataclysmic way of losing.

Edit: BTW looks like SL are resting Murali and Vaas! Presumably Malinga not playing either.

 

[killadoob]

yup 1 run lol

 

[BobbyMac]

we play awesome on a fast bouncy wicket

our bowlers like it because we are a pace attack and our batmens love the ball coming on to the bat

if we play on this track we will beat england and could possibly win the world on a fast bouncy wicket

give us a slow wicket we out

Not quite - SA no longer has a pace attack, medium pace yes, but not a real genuine pace attack. When last have we had a bowler who consistently bowls @ 150km/h plus? The few we do have are not in the squad, and we're left with slow ass bowling machines who open the bowling. Cricket for a very long time still will always have several elements to it:

Bowling:
1. Lightning fast bowlers
2. Extremely deceptive swing bowlers
3. Clever slow arm bowlers
4. Economy Class

Batting:
1. Mainstay openers
2. Consolidators
3. Accelerators
4. Sloggers

In the bowling department SA seems to concentrate on #4. In the batting, it's one extreme or the other, there doesn't seem to be a Gary or Peter Kirsten around that can do 3 out of the 4 by themselves. Jacques Kallis is trying but he's playing risky cricket and losing his wicket. Smith, De Villiers etc should be playing those roles.

Then there's fitness - SA and England are the only squads where team members have struggled with severe cramps while batting.

Then there is the matter of some of our players being past their prime. Shaun Pollock is past his prime - I think he can still do exceptionally in the Test arena, but the modern ODI game is just going to make things harder for him. Ntini is also beginning to lose his ODI shine.

SA needs to bring the young bloods in. Why did they take Loots Bosman along if they never planned on using him? Added that they took the worst spinner in SA along as well.

 

[chiskop]

And Telemachus for who-knows-what reason?

 

[NaZKuL]

And Telemachus for who-knows-what reason?

what happened to that other spinner dude who never made the wc squad?

 

[JK8]

And Telemachus for who-knows-what reason?

He could do well on these pitches right?