World Cup 2015

First topic message reminder :

Warm Up game between Ind and Aus ongoing...
it's an official ODI...though after so much cricket why do these sides need a "warm-up"

India's bowling in melt-down and the two most dangerous guys in Aus side Warner and Maxwell get 100s

Looks like Ind will be chasing 375

According to Cricinfo, only four double-tons have been struck in ODIs: all by Indians in India.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/wi/content/records/216972.html

Onwards, Moeen!

And gone

Duty, you jinxed him!

No, Moeen!

You've missed out lad.

Come on root lad

Nooooooooo Moeen

You wonderful wonderful specimen

Not really magic against this attack.

Now Ali's holed out in the deep.

Eng should just go for it from here.
A minimum of 350 runs should be the target with 15 overs to go.

If aus go for it against this attack with zero fear. 450 could be on.


Good ballance out(hales needs to take that spot)Root and mogs to see us home at 10 per over

We're so goddamn inept it's unreal

That's probably one of the few 128s that hasn't improved my opinion of a player! Still serious doubts over him against good quality seamers. The only fault with today's knock is he should have got 200 though!

JDizzle wrote:That's probably one of the few 128s that hasn't improved my opinion of a player! Still serious doubts over him against good quality seamers. The only fault with today's knock is he should have got 200 though!

Thou shalt burn for doubting Moeen Mr Dizzle. Shame on you sir

A wicket maiden to start the batting power play. This is peak England right here, deary me

England should comfortably get 300+ here and a first victory. Can't see Scotland troubling them in this.

Just read that the next two World Cups will only have 10 teams. That's pretty pathetic. No difference from the Champions Trophy. Cricket is far too closed shop and the ICC is far too greedy. Funny thing is if they actually tried to expand the sport they could become even more profitable.

Also reading that the IOC has encouraged the ICC to put Twenty20 forward for the Olympics but England and India are not keen. This would enhance cricket in the smaller nations not to mention bigger markets such as the USA and China and be huge for women's cricket. India and England are not keen because they are far too greedy and selfish.

Oh England - are we going to struggle to make three ton now?

Morgan desperately needs to be there at the end of the innings. If he is, he'll be on around 70/80 not out, and hopefully some much needed confidence for him. Hitting it quite well atm, hope I haven't jinxed him. Still fancy 320 here.

Barring some Kevin O'Brien-esque heroics, England have got more than enough here.

Still irritating though: they should have easily ascertained a total of 350+.

Bowl 'em out England. New Zealand destroyed the Scottish batting order.

Do the same.

303/8 off 50.

Yes, England at last got to 300 in this WC but still very disappointing. So well set at 200/1 with 16 still to go. We should have been looking for 360 as a minimum from there.

Should be enough to win but not nearly enough to suggest we've turned the corner.

As an aside, a brilliant stumping by Cross off Davey to dismiss Taylor. Loved watching that.

Kyle Coetzer sounds South African in origin... Born in Scotland according to Wiki. Uncle played for Eastern Province, and uh... Argentina? Gotta love the global village!

Unrelated rant alert:
Honestly I can't believe how useless, and almost myopic the ICC can be about the DRS. It isn't that difficult a system to use surely? If a batter is struck in front, and the umpire gives it not out on the assumption that there was an inside edge... How does he then survive the review on "umpires call". Quite easy to remedy as well. Umpire just needs to give a detailed explanation of why he gave that not out. "Third Umpire - I don't given that NO because I thought there was an inside edge. If there isn't an inside edge, I think it's hitting the wickets".


Guildford - Yes we were a batsman light. I'm surprised we chose to go a batter light, given the fact that everyone and his dog knew the pitch was flat. We could plug Rossouw at seven and give JP more overs. AB then has to steal two or three overs with his nothing deliveries. Unideal, but still workable

England should win here, but I don't think they are gonna beat both Bangladesh and Lanka. Just seem horribly equipped to win a match right now.

Hagley oveal is a rather small arena, if they have wickets in hand, Scotland could fancy 120 off 15.

We may well be the only team in world cricket who can essentially be 150-0 off 25 overs and then struggle to make 300.

And please stop giving broad the new ball, woakes is so much better with it

Mooen has a truly sub-continental flavour..... a FTB and Minnow basher.

and unless weather gives one more point to BD......and with WI having found form.....I doubt if eitehr of BD/ Zim/ Ire/ Scot will make it to the next round

kingraf wrote:

Guildford - Yes we were a batsman light. I'm surprised we chose to go a batter light, given the fact that everyone and his dog knew the pitch was flat. We could plug Rossouw at seven and give JP more overs. AB then has to steal two or three overs with his nothing deliveries. Unideal, but still workable

Raf - thanks for the response and confirmation. As previously mentioned, I don't think many teams have an ideal balance available to them in this WC and so it becomes a case of picking the team that is least unideal.

A professional enough performance in the end.

The good: Moeen and to a lesser extent Morgan getting some runs. Of course its only against Scotland, but its a bit of time in the middle and might build some confidence for the sterner tests.

The bad: Failure to make a huge total after being well set. This is a repeated problem, and seems a combination of lack of form and also flexibility in the batting order. Why not send Morgan or Buttler in at 3 after that start?

Can't read too much into the bowling, Scotland were never going to chase 300 and as proved vs. NZ are vulnerable to decent fast bowling

Olly wrote:We may well be the only team in world cricket who can essentially be 150-0 off 25 overs and then struggle to make 300.

A decent enough win for England which should improve confidence within the squad but never really gave us viewers enough of a feeling that we'll seriously challenge to win this WC.

As flagged by Olly*, the inability to accelerate in the second half and closing overs of an innings is a major concern. From 34 overs we were 200/1 in this game and just reached 300. From the same position and against the same opposition, several other teams in this tournament would have been pushing for 400.

It was good to see morgan and buttler do what those power players do for other teams and push on at the end. We scored a decent rate last ten over after a wobble. I think I feel asleep after that.

But a suppose par that for england. They are playing against on the whole county 'b' players so that's the reality of the opposition.

But Ali, finn and morgan will have some confidence back.

Taylor and root may have been out early but those two didn't really need the boost as have been performing adequately.

righto, having stayed up through the night for that one, I feel qualified to give my (non-) expert analysis.

First off, these were always going to be good conditions for Moeen to do well in. Good pitch with no great pace, not particularly threatening attack. Scene set for him to play his shots and make a big one, and he duly obliged. Fine knock, but not sure I'll be reading too much into it. The big question is whether he can reproduce against the quicker bowlers on faster bouncier pitches.

Bell's form is a little concerning, his scratchy knock reminded me a little of when he was struggling in Aus in the last Ashes. Didn't time the ball well, and worryingly timid against the slow spin of Haq in particular. With mid-off up, he didn't use his feet once (in fact England as a rule were too wary of using their feet IMO). Useful knock for the team, but does anyone think Ballance couldn't have done the same job if exposed earlier?

Speaking of Ballance, England's - well - balance feels a bit off with their batting line-up. Yes it's rare that your opening partnership will bat 30 overs, but I'm still not sure what England think they're gaining with Ballance at 3 and Taylor at 6. Taylor seems to be at his best when he can play himself in (in fact he seems to need to play himself in), and he then more than makes up for the dots later on. You won't always have the time to do that at n°6, and for me he's much more suited to a middle-order spot (or n°3).

With that in mind, two options spring out: move Taylor to 4 or 5, Morgan to 6, Buttler to 7; or move Taylor back to 3 and either bring in an extra bowler (Tredwell, but then you have to pick Jordan instead of Anderson/Broad/Finn to balance out the batting), or bring back Bops or try out one of Hales/Ballance/maybe even Moeen as a late-over hitter. The obvious solution would have been Stokes, but his form had rightly played him out of the squad, so not an option...

Good to see Moggs return to a semblance of form, and a nice little cameo from Buttler (even if the ball that got him out should have gone for 6), but England should really have scored many many more from their position.

The bowling on the other hand I thought was very good. They bowled in good areas, constantly hitting that spot just short of a drive-able length. Yes Scotland are limited with the bat, but it was nonetheless pleasing and all four seamers did pretty well IMO. Broad looked sharp, which is a nice plus, even if I tend to agree with giving Woakes the new ball at the moment. Only a couple of wides too (one from Root, and a too-high bouncer from Broad IIRC).

England's fielding was generally very sharp, one fumble from Bell aside (which cost one). There were a number of excellent saves in the ring and on the fence, a couple of sharp catches from Moggs and Buttler. Don't know if anyone else noticed, but the ball before the key wicket of Coetzer Taylor produced a terrific dive to just pull back the ball from the boundary (from a late cut), which saved a run, without which Coetzer wouldn't have been on strike for the next ball, thus playing a key part.

Finally, hate to sound like a but Sky's commentary team is all around pretty terrible. I've liked the addition of Anil Kumble, but Lloyd, Botham, Atherton are stuck in the past. Bredon Julian doesn't seem to add anything either: there was a rather silly passage of play when Scotland were 8 wickets down and Julian and Beefy just banged on about how England should be bowling yorkers every ball. When Anderson got the wicket with a routine outswinger Beefy then had the nerve to suggest that it was "full and straight" which had done the job. NO IT WASN'T you tedious person!!

On the tournament as a whole, I'm a little suprised by how few larger-ish score have been chased down. Ireland's chase vs WI the only one of over 300, and only two others I think of over 200 (both against Associate members, with no disrespect intended, and both fairly close chases). In general it has been a very much "bat first, get a score, defend" WC so far.

In fact I was astonished by a stat which said that over the last few years SA have only won 35% of games chasing (OK they probably haven't played England during that time but...). With that as it is, not sure I can see them winning the tournament, as you'd expect them to have to chase at least one large-ish score in the knock-outs... Still feeling pretty confident about my Aus-NZ final (with Aus winners).

I had a flash of a NZ-India final yesterday. Don't know why... just thought it was highly plausible.

I just have a feeling India are (a little like SA) relying on batting first in the big games. In theie case it's to set a big score and get ahead of the game. I reckon in the knock-outs they'll end up either bowling first and conceding a lot or failing to post that 300+ and their bowlers not doing so well under the pressure. For all that they've bowled well so far, I'm still concerned about their bowling under pressure (which it hasn't been so far) and their late-order hitting isn't the best either.

Hi MfC - that's a good and interesting post.

I watched the first 50 overs 'live' and then the Sky highlights this morning. It's always difficult from highlights to get a real feel of things - encouraged therefore by your comments about England's bowling and fielding.

I'm not a great fan of Bell by any means but I'm more sympathetic to him than most of the Sky guys were last night and many others now. Important and fair to appreciate the context of his innings. We went into this game on the back of two heavy defeats knowing that another against Scotland, an associate team, would lead to us being pilloried in the media and close to out of this tournament. Furthermore, the biggest strength of Scotland is probably their bowling which had seen them beat the lauded Ireland in one of the Warm Ups and come close against New Zealand in their group opener.

What we needed to start getting things back on track was an opening partnership. Whilst Bell was certainly the lesser contributor, he still played his part in ensuring that objective was achieved and didn't depart until over 170 were on the board. I think it was Nick Knight (someone on Sky I like - normally calm and rational who doesn't look for the attention grabbing sound bite) who said that Bell 'lacked fluency' (agree with you also, MfC, about Bell's footwork) and should have tried to be 'busier'. Those are valid and appropriate criticisms. However, he didn't hold things up so much that Moeen had to press on harder than he wanted and risk chucking his own (Moeen's) wicket away.

As I've said earlier, we were in a great position at 200/1 with 16 overs left. Whilst the bulk of the credit for that goes to Moeen, we shouldn't be too hard on the other guy who was there most of the time. As also said before, very disappointing though that we couldn't take advantage and mount a proper onslaught.

I agree with you about Taylor seeming to need a little time to get going and back your suggestion for him to replace Ballance at 3. I still want to bring in Tredwell as an extra bowling option and so would leave Ballance out altogether. Yes, I well know that doesn't help the team balance but balance isn't a pre-requisite if you have to play someone not good enough and/or out of form to achieve it. Depending how Jordan is looking in the nets, maybe consider him for Broad - that should help the batting.

Btw, as a keeper, you must have appreciated Cross' stumping of Taylor. Brilliant!

We scored 130-8 off the last 20 overs against a team of medium paced dobblers. In what world is that even close to being acceptable. Any other nation like Australia, India, south Africa etc would've got 350+ from that position after 30 overs.

That's fair enough guildford. Bell's knock was an important one for the team, certainly. However, I'm concerned about his form. For England to go any distance at this WC Bell is going to need big runs at some stage, and his scratchiness was a concern (to me in any case).

I do think it's important to not be overly critical too. England were off the back of two thrashings (one an almighty beating) to the extent that people genuinely fancied Scotland here. Instead, England bounced back and pretty much trounced them, so it's a good win (in fact pretty much the easiest win over an Associate nation so far). 80% of the game went well to very well from an England POV, the really poor bit being their finish. England will be well aware of that, but I think it's important that we not overly focus on the negative and ignore a lot of the good things that England did.

On the balance of the side, I'm actually leaning more and more towards the five bowler option, for several reasons.

1) I'd like to get Tredwell into the side. He's a good bowler, and would add something a bit different to the attack. With England's well documented problems in the middle-overs he could offer a good solution. However, I think the warm-up against Pakistan showed that he can't play as part of a four man attack. Given that, unlike Australia or SA neither of England's fifth bowling options or indeed Tredders himself can bowl at the the death, you end up having to bowl them through overs 15-35 (roughly), which is a complete lack of flexibility.

2) Without Bops's bowling option, there's a genuine conern if someone gets after one of the main seamers like McCullum did with Finn. You'd have to potentially bowl 15+ overs of Moeen and Root which I'm not sure can work.

3) Ballance is quite frankly not adding anything to the side right now anyway.

MfC - we're pretty much as one there although you seem less keen on the five bowlers (plus Moeen) option on the other thread.

I acknowledge this approach isn't ideal but, as previously explained, don't feel an ideal option is currently available to us and consider this to be the best approach available to take. One of our biggest problems is that our bowling is too samey: Tredwell's inclusion would certainly help there. The extra bowler also increases our chances of taking 10 wickets which is something we'll probably need to do if we are to defeat any of the big guns. Time and again we have shown that we can't match such other teams in a runfest.

Problem with going five bowlers though, is if you then have to chase a big total, as we found out against the Indians... there will be blood

kingraf wrote:Problem with going five bowlers though, is if you then have to chase a big total, as we found out against the Indians... there will be blood

I was really surprised by that match, India didn't look capable of winning a game in Aus conditions having been out there for months then produce that win. So in that group we have SA losing to India, who were well beaten by Pakistan, who were well beaten by the Windies after the Windies had been well beaten by Ireland.

The tournament has been interesting stuff so far, not really in terms of great matches, but the unpredicatability of results!

kingraf wrote:Problem with going five bowlers though, is if you then have to chase a big total, as we found out against the Indians... there will be blood

Raf - I certainly acknowledge the problem. However, a particular issue England have is that playing the extra batsman doesn't seem to get them any extra runs. That's why my eggs are in the bowlers' basket with the suggestion that we try for 10 wickets each game before the 50 overs are up.

VTR wrote:

... The tournament has been interesting stuff so far, not really in terms of great matches, but the unpredicatability of results!

VTR - I go along with that strongly. Also, although we haven't (so far) had any really tight finishes, a lot of the games have seemed quite difficult to call at the half way stage.

Olly - that comment from VTR explains why I've been enjoying a lot of this WC and far better than my post yesterday.

guildford. Like I said I'm leaning towards it more and more. My preference would probably still be to go with Moeen Bell Hales Root Taylor Moggs Buttler and the four seamers, but while a couple of months ago I was fairly certain 7 batsmen was the way to go I'm less sure now, and would actually be interested to see how they went with five bowlers. probably too big a change at this point though, so don't really expect it to happen.

I maintain that if England do go that route they need to pick Jordan. Woakes might just make a n°7 (though not a particularly good one), but there's no way Broad is a n°8 at present. If you're just picking six batsmen you need to have a decent tail, so probably Finn would have to make way (which seems harsh, he bowled pretty well yesterday...)

As for the tournament as a whole, yesterday was actually the first match I watched a substantial chunk of (watched bits and pieces of England's innings against Aus, and SA's against India too). As I said, going on results it does seem to be a "bat first" world cup so far...

Going away from the England discussion for a moment. I do wonder if we haven't too many chefs in the kitchen at the moment, and more to the point, new chefs who don't understand the system. Player wise, we'd have AB, Faf and Amla sharing the leadership role (with AB obviously making the decisions) that works for us (we were #1 in ODI not long ago, and are still #1 in Tests), but then you look at the staff.
Domingo (head coach)
Kirsten (consultant)
Hussey (batting coach)
Donald (bowling coach)
Langeveldt (death bowling coach)
Henderson (spin coach)
then we have a fielding coach and psychologist.

In a team culture that's been generally quite authoritarian, I wonder if there's just a bit of difficulty, getting the whole "decisions by committee" thing right.

I missed this after the New Zealand game but apparently Moores genuinely said "We're still in the tournament and that's a positive".

Please get that man some PR coaching, turns to jelly under the mic

VTR wrote:

kingraf wrote:Problem with going five bowlers though, is if you then have to chase a big total, as we found out against the Indians... there will be blood

I was really surprised by that match, India didn't look capable of winning a game in Aus conditions having been out there for months then produce that win. So in that group we have SA losing to India, who were well beaten by Pakistan, who were well beaten by the Windies after the Windies had been well beaten by Ireland.

The tournament has been interesting stuff so far, not really in terms of great matches, but the unpredicatability of results!

which world are you living in my friend ???
Allocated India's most famous win in history's largest watched cricket game by a huge margin...to Pakistan ?  

Was there a bigger TV audience for that game than the 2011 final? If so, amazing.

Raf,
Lots of staff involved there. Hussey gave a little insight into the system the other day... it was quite interesting. He said it felt a bit strange to put on a Protea's shirt on his first day in the office but couldn't speak highly enough of the players and support staff.

Wonder what happens if there's a SA-Aus match down the track? I'd love to be a fly on the wall to hear what he says about the opposition's batting strengths/weaknesses.

Apologies to kp fan and all of India. They did indeed beat Pakistan convincingly!

I sweat Pakistan beat someone or am I just imagining it. Probably, there is so much cricket these days its hard to know what was what

*swear

well pre WC- england beat india twice then lost to pakistan who then got beat by India who then beat SA , etc, etc, etc

I blame those warm up games as they ran pretty much straight into the world cup. Also the games taking place overnight, some of the matches are consumed via a quick glance at the scorecard in the morning, quite hard to remember results that way!

I'm sure Clarke's weaknesses will all be laid to bare LD!! On a serious note though, it is a lot of staff, and while I'm sure everything is amicable and peachy, I'd have a hard time believing that there aren't any contradictory ideals and philosophies on the respective arts. We've done well without all that support staff for 18 months now, think it's an unnecessary shock to the system.

Agree mate. Like you say - too many cooks spoil the broth. No need to over-complicate things.

So Gayle is having a fine time out there today. Just launching into it with 12 overs to go.

Zimbabwe is your 2nd team, raf? They look like a good unit (physically)... the outfield is a little slippery but have done well to keep the WI run rate under control. Do you think their batsmen can put pressure back on the Windies bowlers... chasing say 300-ish?

Rather strange knock from Samuels, especially given his previous history with bookies, but if he finishes with a SR of about 80, given how well Gayle is going it would be alright

No ball... and Gayle is "caught" near the rope... then caught again on the free hit at almost the exact same spot!