Rest of the World

First topic message reminder :

I figure a thread for cricket stuff from around the world that doesn't warrant a series-thread is useful

Sarfraz Ahmed reportedly apporached about spot fixing, luckily he did the right thing and reported it immediatly!

West Indies began their two Test series against Zimbabwe today. Windies crumbled haplessly against Zimbabwe's spinners. Only Kieran Powell 56 and Shai Hope 90* showed any fight. Graeme Cremer 4-64 and Sean Wllliams 3-20 torn through the Windies. With Zimbabwe's star man Brendan Taylor back in the ranks they could well record a famous win.

Just noted a first class score from New Zealand:

Auckland 62 all out.
Wellington currently 376/0!

Very impressive stats-whoring, Duty.
Nothing on Cricinfo but they seem to be stuck in last season. According to the NZ Herald Wellington declared on 553/3, the opening stand was worth 432.

Sri lanka whitewashed 5-0 again! This time at the hands of Pakistan!

Bangladesh’s dreadful tour of South Africa ended with David Miller smashing a world record 35 ball T20 international century against them. Miller hit 31 off one over where he hit the first five balls for six. Fair to say the left handed slugger enjoyed himself

Horror tour for bangladesh...competitive at home, but still crap away from home

NZ lost a close game to India, was a thriller, means India take the series 2-1

India cruise to victory in the first t20 against New Zealand...... feel like im the only one posting here lol

Windies go into day 5 of the 2nd test against Zimabwbe, in pole position.... Zim lead by 11 with 6 wickets remianing...effectively 11-4

Zimbabwe have battled hard, and look to be heading for a highly-credible draw.

Lyth out golden duck on bpl debut, plunkett did well though, bopara doing well, samit patel seems to have had a shocker in all 3 facets today - going from cricinfo

Two test series between the Kiwis and the West Indies starts tonight, for anyone needing a test fix before the Adelaide game.

Looking forward to it, sky showing it from 10pm UK time, gonna try and watch as much of day 1 as i can.

Well Wagner has destroyed the Windies batting order.

He’s got figures of 6/29 currently.

Was a pathetic batting display from the windies...managed to put on 59 for opening wicket, and then Wagner ran through them...wasn't even a quick bouncy wicket, just horrific technique from the WI batsmen, as shown by the dismissal of Hetmyer, summed their effort..

Wagner is going to destroy us when we tour there in Feb

Windies' bowling not up too much, either. Horribly wayward this morning.

The Kiwis have cruised to 181/3.

Colin de Grandhomme hammered a 71 ball century. The fastest maiden Test century of all time.

Elsewhere Virat Kohli continues to amuse himself against Sri Lanka, just racked up his third successive century - 104*, 213 and 101*

NZ coasted to victory against the west Indies.... Sri lanka batted the day thanks to hundreds from Mathews and Chandimal, and with 2 days to go, could potentially escape with a draw..

Ambris, a West Indies player, has been out ‘hit wicket’ twice in his first three test innings. There’s now only two players ahead of him for that type of dismissal in the entire history of test cricket!

And India are 8/3 after 9 overs. In an ODI!

With these strange happenings, would an England turnaround in Australia be that difficult to comprehend?

Rohit Sharma blasted his third ODI double century, no one else has more than 1. 208* off 153 balls. Second century off only 36 balls. "Hitman" is a formidable limited overs slugger

1st innings: 0 (hit wicket first ball)
2nd innings: 18 (off the mark with a six)
3rd innings: 2 (hit wicket again)
4th innings: 5 (retired hurt with a broken arm)
Quite some debut tour for Sunil Ambris.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was his only tour!

Chris Gayle has declared himslef the altime greatest T20 batsman, despite having far poorer international stats than Kholi (his domestic ones are a bit better, and Kholis not made centuries)
Whilst his ego is clearly out of control he did hit a pretty epic score against a strong bowling unit in the BPL final.

Hales hit an unbeaten 57 off 26 balls in the T10. Im not sure how good that is really but well done have a drink to celebrate

Gooseberry wrote:Chris Gayle has declared himslef the altime greatest T20 batsman, despite having far poorer international stats than Kholi (his domestic ones are a bit better, and Kholis not made centuries)
Whilst his ego is clearly out of control he did hit a pretty epic score against a strong bowling unit in the BPL final.

Hales hit an unbeaten 57 off 26 balls in the T10. Im not sure how good that is really but well done have a drink to celebrate

C'mon fella surely you'd rather see Gayle smash it everywhere rather than Virat dissecting the opposition? Gayle has a pair of T20i 100s, Virat does not...

Rohit Sharma hammers a record equalling 35 ball T20i century against Sri Lanka. Sensational and devastating knock by the Indian captain

Just imagine how many he’d have got if the ICC hadn’t banned big bats.

India ended up racking up 260-5!

It was only a few weeks ago that India were something like 10/4 after 11 overs in an ODI!

There is nothing more boring than an India-Lanka series
excessive overdose
I'd rather prefer to see Ind-Afg play

Was a good effort in the chase until the Kuldeep over which resulted in 3 wickets, chase ran out of steam at that point, but for a while Rohit would have been worried..

Tomm starts a 4 day d/n test match between SA& Zim

Would be interesting to watch out for the 4 day in a D/N set up ......return of Brendon Taylor and Steyn......SA's new opening batsmen......given that India with big hopes will be travelling there soon after

It's heard BCCI was miffed because they wanted the Boxing day test but were late in confirming the schedules so this 4 day test was granted to Zim........and in retaliation BCCI declined the 4th test.....but then in reconciliation granted 2 addtional ODIs and a T20i

As an amazing trivia.....the two boxing day tests would nearly run a day apart due to time differences and D/N factor

Given how Zimbabwe were comfortably beaten by an invitation XI, the test might not even last three days!

SA 3 down for 170 odd....doing well but not going on from strong positions multiple times

from 250-3 SA crash to 309-9
seems like ABDV as standin captain has declared
why ?
perhaps the ball is wobbling around................. and he wants to make the 10 overs available under light count for is bowlers

Sensational for Zimbabwe to fight back.

Unfortunately, they've lost a wicket first ball. 0/1.

its 100 overs a day i just realized
So its as good as 4.5 days game

Jeez that last session. Put some grass and lacquer a ball pink with some grass, and 120kph suddenly becomes untouchable and unplayabl

Duty281 wrote:Given how Zimbabwe were comfortably beaten by an invitation XI, the test might not even last three days!

All over in two days. Zimbabwe’s batting couldn’t stand up to South Africa’s class.

Had the opportunity to watch some extended highlights.

--Zim seemed grateful & excited to be given a Boxing day test, a D/N test and modern eras first 4 day test.

--and in excitement they sprayed around on a green seaming pitch and used up the first two quarter denied appeals for wasted reviews

and when they found their line/ length later in the day and started to get the ball moving ....they had no reviews left

--Zim are not bad.....Mazurbani was hitting 140kph, Mpofu is like Pommy Mbangwa a 130kph swing bowler.........Jarvis seems like a good medium pace bowling all-rounder...and Cremer is more than part time leggie and sikandar is also a handy off spinner...given that batting is his main trait

They would come out better than BD and WI in these conditions but the pace and bounce of Morkel was just a bridge too far

What Zim need is not an occasional high profile game but a lot of international games and I hope Zim, BD, WI, Afg, Ire can play 10 tests and 15 ODis each every year...a lot of it among themselves.

--SA needed to fill in the boxing day slot waiting for Indians....and they tried to make it exciting via 4 day, D/N...but i am not sure what they gained

>why they did not try Steyn?
>They lost Quinton to a Hamstring injury and they claim he will be fit for 5th Jan test vs Ind.....that's only 9 days away

>Why was De Villiers given captaincy in his come back match ......and not Elgar in the absence of Faf
De Villiers appears casual & arrogant as a captain, like he always did to me.
They have so many guys who have captained in the team

>If Quinton is not fit, is De Villiers willing to play as a WK batsman)...it would lend so much balance to the side, only if De Villiers was willing.

> another applause for Maharaj who keeps picking wickets in seaming conditions....with his classical ripping, flighted and variety filled SLA


--Even the spectators / sponsors / administrators wouldn't be happy with the game finishing in under 2 days
A game that did not good to any one in the end in my view.
I think with an eye on one day less SA prepared a bowler friendly pitch to ensure a result....
In hindsight a flat , bouncy pitch might have brought a bit of contest and extended the game.

Eagerly awaiting the India-SA series now

Might have been better with a "normal" daytime Test Match ? Even if kept to four days...
Never mind. At least Zimbabwe got to play a Test. Agree they and the other "smaller" teams should play a good number of matches between themselves , which will surely lift standards all round just through the experience of multi-day matches.

As for SA , guess they got a warm up of sorts. The India series will indeed be tasty (as will the Australian visit later !)

Still unsure of how Steyn will manage on return - when he eventually does. I get they don't want to risk anything ; but I would have thought he might have been ready to try now - else should he even be with the squad ? If he doesn't make it back soon you wonder if it might be time to just move on to the new boys - they seem to keep producing them !

I was going to say Alfie, is Steyn even in the best three seamers SA have now? I'd have Rabada, Morkel and Philander ahead of him personally...

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:I was going to say Alfie, is Steyn even in the best three seamers SA have now? I'd have Rabada, Morkel and Philander ahead of him personally...

a pace attack of Morkel, Rabada and fully fit Steyn would be scary
though risk of Steyn breaking down is the downside of this combination...which can be managed by playing Philander as the 4th seamer who is a lower order useful bat....and for that to happen De Villier should be willing to play as a WK batsman

KP_fan wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:I was going to say Alfie, is Steyn even in the best three seamers SA have now? I'd have Rabada, Morkel and Philander ahead of him personally...

a pace attack of Morkel, Rabada and fully fit Steyn would be scary
though risk of Steyn breaking down is the downside of this combination...which can be managed by playing Philander as the 4th seamer who is a lower order useful bat....and for that to happen De Villier should be willing to play as a WK batsman

Would be hard to leave Philander out !

I guess the phrase "a fully fit Steyn" is key. Remains to be seen if we will see that again...

alfie wrote:

KP_fan wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:I was going to say Alfie, is Steyn even in the best three seamers SA have now? I'd have Rabada, Morkel and Philander ahead of him personally...

a pace attack of Morkel, Rabada and fully fit Steyn would be scary
though risk of Steyn breaking down is the downside of this combination...which can be managed by playing Philander as the 4th seamer who is a lower order useful bat....and for that to happen De Villier should be willing to play as a WK batsman

Would be hard to leave Philander out !

I guess the phrase "a fully fit Steyn" is key.  Remains to be seen if we will see that again...

Fully Fit can only be tested in a test Match
He has enough credit in the bank to be given a few chances to be tried in test matches
But SA cannot afford a broken Steyn as one of 3 seamers
So somehow the've gotta engineer a 4 seamer attack including Steyn

Pakistan have arrived in NZ, rain ruined 1st ODI, but NZ won on D/L

Sri Lanka are in a bit of a mess, losing to Zimbabwe and Bangladesh (by 163 runs) in a tri-series.

KP_fan wrote:

alfie wrote:

KP_fan wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:I was going to say Alfie, is Steyn even in the best three seamers SA have now? I'd have Rabada, Morkel and Philander ahead of him personally...

a pace attack of Morkel, Rabada and fully fit Steyn would be scary
though risk of Steyn breaking down is the downside of this combination...which can be managed by playing Philander as the 4th seamer who is a lower order useful bat....and for that to happen De Villier should be willing to play as a WK batsman

Would be hard to leave Philander out !

I guess the phrase "a fully fit Steyn" is key.  Remains to be seen if we will see that again...

Fully Fit can only be tested in a test Match
He has enough credit in the bank to be given a few chances to be tried in test matches
But SA cannot afford a broken Steyn as one of 3 seamers
So somehow the've gotta engineer a 4 seamer attack including Steyn

Right on all counts there KP!

SA though seem to have enough of a stable of fast bowlers to live without Steyn. A quality all rounder and a couple of batsmen short of being a frighteningly good side.

When Aus go over itll be another absolute shoot out, their pace attacks are heads above the rest of the world but both are of "mixed ability" in the batting department. Dont buy tickets for day 5.

Bangladesh having a great tri-series...great move to promote Shakib to 3... Zim having a decent time too...turned over sri lanka, sri lanka declining rapidly