T20 World Cup: Live Matches Discussion

First topic message reminder :

Hi all,

I've set up our very own 606v2 T20 World Cup SuperBru tipping competition for anyone who is interested.

http://www.superbru.com/worldt20/player_home.asp

First game is Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe on Tuesday, September 18 at 19:30 (local time) in Hambantota.

The full list of fixtures is here:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/world-twenty20-2012/content/series/531597.html?template=fixtures

The pool code for 606v2: playsacs

Everyone is welcome.
Enjoy the matches and best of luck to your team.

Who do you think will win?

Very very professional from England. Showed exactly how to build a T20 innings, don't panic even if a poor start, get yourself set and when the bowling becomes predictable or you get used to it then you can score 15-20 an over regularly.

A lot of aspiring sides (including the Afghans, but also Zimbabwe, and probably some of the better sides as well) can learn a lot from the England innings today.

Providing your poor overs are going for 4 or 5 and your good ones are going for 15+ you're going to get a big score. Makes some comments early on about them struggling to play the spinners and struggling to get going seem a bit silly - there's a difference between struggling and biding your time.

Speaking of looking silly, Luke Wright has made me look a bit silly today. I still wonder whether he lacks the ability to score singles in the PP, and I'm still concerned as to how he'll go against genuine pace and top quality spin, but on the face of it he seems a much better cricketer, much more relevant footwork and his shot selection was improved on what I've seen from him previously.

I didn't see the England bowling performance, but from the sounds of it Afghanistan came out swinging. With that mindset, that kind of collapse was always on the cards.

Some criticism of Afghanistan is a bit unwarranted though. Their bowling was ok, it's sharp up front and decent spin options. It became predictable, somewhere the associate game is still far behind is those death overs, where with a few exceptions the name of the game is still full and straight - whilst there are still commentators who swear that this is the only way to go and that all this slower ball stuff is unnecessary, they are really wrong: once again we saw today with a couple of Wright's blows and Bairstow's first ball that if you get the yorker wrong by as little as a foot with today's bottom heavy bats it goes.

I also question the wisdom of the captaincy - for me Zhadran bowled an over too many up front (the over which went for 23) and the leggie bowled his 4 on the trott, which will rarely work. Unless you've got genuine quality you should be looking to mix things up a lot more. England were perfectly content to have a look at new bowlers for an over or so before lining them up - chopping and changing more may not have made much difference, but it would have at least made sure the batsmen were having to go after bowling before having lined it up.

Their fielding was excellent for a while, then went to pieces. There is a lot of work to be done there.

Their batting is inexperienced, and disappointingly it seems they didn't learn their lessons from the previous game. Too many big shots, and not enough nudging in between.

Regardless of the standard of the opposition, that has been the dominant performance, and I would say the most coherent performance in terms of gameplans (alongside South Africa blasting out Zimbabwe) we have seen so far. If I were an England fan I would certainly be cautiously optimistic.

Fists of Fury wrote:Hales looks utterly clueless against spin. Shanky was right, he is simply not good enough in Asia (probably not good enough at all for international cricket, as you can tell, I don't rate him too highly).

50 for Wright, well played. Pleased for him.

I have been quite impressed with Hales of late. Thought he played decently yesterday. Better than Kieswetter, for my money.

South Africa Sri Lanka, and then West Indies Australia.
Should be 2 interesting contests and I would be focusing on the latter game.
Strangely both games happen at the same time?

Hi msp,
SL v SA starts at 3:30 (local time), Australia v West Indies at 7:30 according to cricinfo?
Would have been nice to have it the other way round. 8pm start (AEST) for Oz-WI match, midnight for the SL-SA one?

A remarkably good showing by England yesterday in all three disciplines.

Wright was excellent with several other batsmen chipping in usefully with runs at a decent rate. All the bowlers were on the money and were very well supported in the field (although I only saw play until the fall of the 8th wicket). Particularly liked the Buttler/Broad run out.

I just hope we haven't used up our best performance against our worst opponents.

Luke wright silencing his critics, I never doubted him unlike so many others!

guildfordbat wrote:

I just hope we haven't used up our best performance against our worst opponents.

Are you talking about the Aus warm up game ?

Gregers wrote:Luke wright silencing his critics, I never doubted him unlike so many others!

Gregers - I certainly did and I fully accept he couldn't have done any better than he did yesterday. There will be much sterner tests to come for him in this tournament. I just hope he does at least half as well in those as he did yesterday - that would prove my original view wrong without question.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:

I just hope we haven't used up our best performance against our worst opponents.

Are you talking about the Aus warm up game ?

No. You are quoting me out of context.

guildfordbat wrote:

Gregers wrote:Luke wright silencing his critics, I never doubted him unlike so many others!

Gregers - I certainly did and I fully accept he couldn't have done any better than he did yesterday. There will be much sterner tests to come for him in this tournament. I just hope he does at least half as well in those as he did yesterday - that would prove my original view wrong without question.

Thing is we already know he can massacre county level bowling (or worse), but he has always struggled against proper international sides no matter what his form coming into a series.
The scores in the warm ups are far more important to me, 35 and 38 against good sides is a really good sign he may finally be getting his act together at this level. I cant really see the doubts were unfounded, his international career has been rank. In the end most of us understood why he was picked though, with Bopara woefully out of form he was the only realistic option to balance the side and an experienced campaigner in a young side. So far hes been Englands player of the tour, hats off to him for that but more required before we move on to "Kevin Who?"
Gives me a lot more faith to see him consistently scoring runs, England have the bowlers but the batting is fragile.

I've never been a particular Wright fan - particularly when at one point he was being talked about as a possible Test player.

But I can remember him doing some good things for us at T20 level, including in the last World T20. I personally think he's a little bit short of being a really world class player, but I can't think of anybody better in the country (his team-mate Nash and Peter Trego probably the only other contenders) that could be the number three and sixth bowler at this point in time, if we count out Bopara.

What he does well is that he plays fearlessly. There is a fine line between fearlessness, which England used to such good effect in 2010 and recklessness, which Afghanistan practiced yesterday. If we're to win this tournament we have to be fearless, and in his current form I'm not sure Bopara would have been able to be so.

Shelsey93 wrote:

But I can remember him doing some good things for us at T20 level, including in the last World T20.

Last T20 world cup he scored an average 13 runs a game and bowled one over in the entire tournament. His only telling contribution was a 45 in the opening match.....

Average isn't always the most important thing in T20... in the last tournament I reckon only KP and maybe Morgan would have had really good averages.

But the attitudes of Lumb, Kieswetter and Wright made a difference.

Wright's bowling is probably less useful than Bopara's - he's more of a seamer who's not really international standard, as compared to Ravi who bowls quite useful variations and can be difficult to get away.

If only Ravi's batting was international standard....

Its cricket's old nemesis bloody old rain and we aren't even playing in England!. Thought we are going to have a propper contest, and now might have to watch the nonsense of a 5-6 over game. What a travesty!.

In fairness the SA-SL match has zero bearing on the tournament. Looking forward to WI v Aus though.

I'm still not sold on Wright to be honest. He's got runs against poor opposition before, and I must admit I was worried when I saw his previous highest score was against the Dutch in 09; I thought something was written in the stars for us to lose again! However, there is cause for more optimism as he batted much, much better this tournament and this season than he has ever done. With shot selection, calm, controlled hitting when he did go, he didn't panic when we had a few quiet overs and I thought he rotated the spinners the best of anyone.

I actually think his bowling his useful in T20 cricket, as in ODI's I think without variation he would struggle bowling even three or four overs spells without being got after but if used in only one over spell when another bowler is struggling he could be effective. He has nip and skids it on and could prove tricky to get away in one over.

The rain has stopped and we after all, might just get some cricket. Would rather prefer a washout than a 5 over farce though.

About to commence. Only 42 balls per side. A thrashing dash for cash.

The crowd have been very patient. Let's hope it's a good old fashioned 7-over thriller.

What an utter farce, a 7 over game. Thankfully its of no major consequence.

And South Africa lost 1 in the first over, Levi gone for 4, Kulasekhara with the wicket.

Hashim Amla looking good again, what a phenomenal last couple of years he has had!.

79 runs for SL to win. 11.35 per over.

Dilshan has just been run out. 4-1 in the first over still.

Seven over game is a bit of a joke really. Just hope none of the knock out games get reduced to such absurdity.
Good hitting from SA though.

Impressed by England last night...only Afghanistan I know , but a very professional job. And Wright was excellent...of course we still have to see what he does against stronger opponents , but his clean hitting leaves me wondering if perhaps the best is yet to come from him. I noted his comments in the interview about having learned better shot selection so look forward to seeing how he goes in the rest of the tournament.

All too easy for SA ...still hasn't been anything resembling a match yet.

Perhaps Aus and West Indies will provide a real contest ?

The farce game is just getting over but the other one is starting soon.
West Indies have gone for Johnson Charles over Andre Russell. Poor call from the management.

Unless Russell has some injury problems, this just is stupid and I have another reason to be critical of Darren Sammy. He keeps a good quality seamer out of the test side with his presence, and now he's at it again, Russell is a better bat and bowl than Sammy, yet he's kept out, and that to for a mindless slogger in Charles.

Dwayne Smith does the usual, gets out within 2 overs of his coming in. When he score runs then he really smashes, but that is the exception and not the rule.
Now here is Charles!.

Gayle dropped and then Charles hitting a 4 and a 6, Australians just under a little bit of pressure.

18 of the Cummins over, Watson will be kicking himself for that drop.

Christian into the attack and Charles plays on after glancing a boundary of the first ball. West Indies 47-2.

Samuels the new bat.

50 for the big man!!!.

Doesn't pay to drop Chris Gayle , does it

The average first innings here is 162...you'd fancy West Indies are on for a few more than that today. But a wicket or two might change that.

Gayle's just murdering them, Samuels too joins in with a lovely, pleasing shot of his!.

You can get him out, but you can't keep him quite. But Starc doing the unthinkable there, just 5 of the over and West Indies 93-2 after 10.

Redemption for Watson, he gets Gayle!.

Watson becoming a bit of a Golden-arm in this Cup...Aus needed that wicket.

Quiet spell where Australia came back a bit , but Samuels has got West Indies going again. Very nice six over extra cover

windies going extremely well..

they will need Cummins to bowl well at the death, having bowled 2 overs for 19, he is very good at the death of a innings!

Interesting game this(Aus v WI)

WI should hit 200, gonna be an interesting chase

You put the mockers on Cummins there , CF

Bowling front foot no balls in this format is unforgiveable.

alfie wrote:You put the mockers on Cummins there , CF

Bowling front foot no balls in this format is unforgiveable.

My Gf reakons SW looks like Patrick Swaze!!

maybe a little bit...

Good catch and great wicket . If OZ can keep this below 180= game is very much on

msp83 wrote:The farce game is just getting over but the other one is starting soon.
West Indies have gone for Johnson Charles over Andre Russell. Poor call from the management.

can you remind me what exactly Russel has done to deserve a place in the side? His record in domestic and international T20s is woeful. You may say stats dont tell the whole story but seriously theres a huge difference on the bowling side between sammy and russel. I know you hate Sammy, but Andre Russel is not a good player in this format who has a terrible record, Sammy is not a good player but has a good record all the same.

good to see Chris Gayle back scoring runs for windies on a regular basis, windies cricket needed him back, big time!

Very mixed bag from Cummins tonight ...the maiden over was great but he's taken some tap in his others.
Wicket at last but 39 is a shade too many for the attack leader to concede.

West Indies missing Russell in this situation. He's a far better striker than Ramdin is. But a good score already for West Indies.

191-8 very good score from windies!

Useful few blows from Sammy at he end , including a remarkable two leg byes that only travelled a few yards !
But those wickets have kept it down to ...191

That's the way to save a hat trick

Unless Warner and Watson get off to a flier this is going to be a tough chase...