SRI'S Blog

The second week of the round robin had four matches that evoked my t  interest. The first one  was  Ireland blowing away the Windies ( as briefly indicated in the last blog ) – Ireland have their one or two acts for each of the World Cup and it was unfortunate for the WI as they notched up a 300 + plus score but saw it being surpassed quite easily by the Irish . The Ireland team will continue their giant killing acts and I believe this is not their final  act of this World Cup The second one between England and NZ saw some phenomenal swing bowling by Southee of NZ.. For the first four overs or so , nothing seemed wrong and the England openers Bell and Ali held firm.  One wicket – that of Bell just opended the flood gates and Southee ran through the English batting order to return with seven wickets.  England crashed to 123 all out and that was it . NZ skipper and opener Brendon Mcculum was in a hurry. A  World cup record of 50 runs in 18 balls saw the English loose two out of

The first four matches of the WC 2015 went as per the script book . The two home teams Australia and NZ took on potential predators – England and Srilanka ( SL ). Batting first both home teams put up such challenging totals that it was a mammoth task to chase. End result was both England and SL fell comfortably short. Aussies did show their fire power in both batting and bowling .. So did our dark horse NZ…. It will be a real difficult task to beat these two nations at their home soil The next match was South Africa ( SA) versus the minnows Zimbabwe – it was no cake walk for the SA team which was to overpower the minnows. The Zimbabwe team  stood tall in terms of their performance and  gave a big scare and wake up call to the South Africans. No wonder Dav Whatmore is regarded very highly as a Coach and he seems to have really worked hard with the Zimbabwe team , At certain points of the game , the worried look on the faces of the SA team bench said it all. The next on

India are the defending champions  and I strongly believe that they will not be able to defend their title.  Several reasons/ factors that make me believe that they cannot win the title back. Let us look at the reasons for the Indian team success in 2011. Some key factors that led to the win : Sachin Tendulkar – he had to retire and the whole team was unified in ensuring that he had a grand send off. What more it could be   than the World Cup   title for the farewell party. The team worked hard to pay tribute to the Little Master and they succeeded. There was a purpose to achieve Home Crowd support – There is always extra buoyancy that the home crowds can do to inspire performance. It can go the other way as well . Create pressure that may lead to downfall. But in India’s case , it just went their way The team composition itself —The batters , bowlers were at their peak of their performance. Added to that was the performance of Yuvaraj throughout the entire tournament .