ICC Cricket World Cup - Part 2

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Table

New Zealand	5	9	1.591
England	5	8	1.862
Australia	5	8	0.812
India	4	7	1.029
Bangladesh	5	5	-0.27
Sri Lanka	5	4	-1.778
West Indies	5	3	0.272
South Africa	5	3	-0.193
Pakistan	5	3	-1.933
Afghanistan	5	0	-2.089

Pool Fixtures

Thu, May 30 
10:30 England vs South Africa  (The Oval)

Fri, May 31 
10:30 West Indies vs Pakistan (Trent Bridge)

Sat, Jun 1 
10:30 New Zealand vs Sri Lanka (Cardiff)
13:30 Afghanistan vs Australia (Bristol)

Sun, Jun 2 
10:30 South Africa vs Bangladesh (The Oval)

Mon, Jun 3 
10:30 England vs Pakistan (Trent Bridge)

Tue, Jun 4 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Sri Lanka (Cardiff)

Wed, Jun 5 
10:30 South Africa vs India (Southampton)
13:30 Bangladesh vs New Zealand (The Oval)

Thu, Jun 6 
10:30 Australia vs West Indies (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 7 
10:30 Pakistan vs Sri Lanka (Bristol)

Sat, Jun 8 
10:30 England vs Bangladesh (Cardiff)
13:30 Afghanistan vs New Zealand (Taunton)

Sun, Jun 9 
10:30 Australia vs India (The Oval)

Mon, Jun 10 
10:30 South Africa vs West Indies (Southampton)

Tue, Jun 11 
10:30 Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka (Bristol)

Wed, Jun 12 
10:30 Australia vs Pakistan (Taunton)

Thu, Jun 13 
10:30 India vs New Zealand (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 14 
10:30 England vs West Indies (Southampton)

Sat, Jun 15 
10:30 Australia vs Sri Lanka (The Oval)
13:30 Afghanistan vs South Africa (Cardiff)

Sun, Jun 16 
10:30 India vs Pakistan (Old Trafford)

Mon, Jun 17 
10:30 Bangladesh vs West Indies (Taunton)

Tue, Jun 18 
10:30 England vs Afghanistan (Old Trafford)

Wed, Jun 19 
10:30 New Zealand vs South Africa (Edgbaston)

Thu, Jun 20 
10:30 Australia vs Bangladesh (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 21 
10:30 England vs Sri Lanka (Headingley)

Sat, Jun 22 
10:30 Afghanistan vs India (Southampton)
13:30 New Zealand vs West Indies (Old Trafford)

Sun, Jun 23 
10:30 Pakistan vs South Africa (Lord’s)

Mon, Jun 24 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Bangladesh (Southampton)

Tue, Jun 25 
10:30 England vs Australia (Lord’s)

Wed, Jun 26 
10:30 New Zealand vs Pakistan (Edgbaston)

Thu, Jun 27 
10:30 India vs West Indies (Old Trafford)

Fri, Jun 28 
10:30 South Africa vs Sri Lanka (Edgbaston)

Sat, Jun 29 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Pakistan (Headingley)
13:30 Australia vs New Zealand (Lord’s)

Sun, Jun 30 
10:30 England vs India (Edgbaston)

Mon, Jul 1 
10:30 Sri Lanka vs West Indies (Riverside Ground)

Tue, Jul 2 
10:30 Bangladesh vs India (Edgbaston)

Wed, Jul 3 
10:30 England vs New Zealand (Riverside Ground)

Thu, Jul 4 
10:30 Afghanistan vs West Indies (Headingley)

Fri, Jul 5 
10:30 Bangladesh vs Pakistan (Lord’s)

Sat, Jul 6 
10:30 India vs Sri Lanka (Headingley)
13:30 Australia vs South Africa (Old Trafford)




Knock Out Fixtures


To Follow

LondonTiger wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Intriguing...England choosing to bat first. Shame Curran didn't get a game.

It's 500 time, lads!

Used pitch with a bit of grip and Afghanistan surely opening with spinners - surely closer to 300 than 500. England can get a big score but need to assess the pitch first rather than going gung-ho from ball 1.

Entering the last over I thought that prediction was safe, in the end only just correct.

397. Wow. Most 6s in an ODI innings with 25.

dummy_half wrote:

alfie wrote:You could have put money on Buttler going for next to nothing after that Morgan innings... He was on a hiding to nothing anyway as you couldn't top that show...

No 400 today ...380-390 represents a decent effort against the spin heavy sort of attack that England often find tricky...

Buttler's best innings seem to come when he can take an over or so to settle in and then go crazy. No harm under these circumstances in him not coming off.

Major batting collapse: 353-2 to 378-6 . Just shows that it isn't easy to come in and swing for the fence from the get go

Unless you are Moeen

Moeen actually middling a few. A shame he couldn't do that against Pakistan, but maybe I'm being picky.

397/6. That should be enough!

Wonder how Afghanistan will approach it? Hell for leather, or merely try to avoid abject humiliation by compiling a respectable 275-300?

Duty281 wrote:Moeen actually middling a few. A shame he couldn't do that against Pakistan, but maybe I'm being picky.

397/6. That should be enough!

Wonder how Afghanistan will approach it? Hell for leather, or merely try to avoid abject humiliation by compiling a respectable 275-300?

They could make a "respectable" 275 and lose by 122 runs. And bowling is their stronger suit. This could be brutal.

Gooseberry wrote:Oh lord things changing quickly! Moeen looks awful and pinches the strike...why!

OK thats why 

MOEEN YOU'RE A FAILURE

Fails to find the boundary with the last ball of the innings, and so to bring up the 400. Only the 31 off 9 balls...

74 runs in the last 5 overs even with the loss of 4 wickets.

Back to my earlier question:


Drinks break with 14 to go and England 217-2. Morgan just took the last over for 18.

Realistic target? 8 an over gets us to 335, 10 to 357. A ballistic Morgan and Buttler could still get us near 400

OK, so we had a ballistic Morgan and Moeen rather than Buttler, and went at 12.8 over the last 14 (142 runs in the last 10).

Overall though this does show how unrealistic 500 scores are...and just how absurd those Trent Bridge games were. 
Despite breaking the sixes record and Morgan almost getting a century in the darn things England weren't a mile away from getting themselves bowled out and some better fielding would've restricted them to the low 300s.  110-0 off 9 overs for the "best bowler in the world" is a total mauling.

Duty281 wrote:

Wonder how Afghanistan will approach it? Hell for leather, or merely try to avoid abject humiliation by compiling a respectable 275-300?

You'd hope with the pressure of expectation off and the bowlers already having lost them the game they'd be willing to swing for the fences and have a laugh. Shoot for the moon! 
Realistically they will probably just get themselves in a mess trying to appear mature and hold places in the side.

That was just ridiculous at the end...Moeen going at 350%

Shame he didn't find the boundary on the last ball but not to quibble

Surprised at those figures re England batting against spin , LT :  I knew they'd improved but hadn't realized they had been going that well...though I guess they've been flaying pretty well all attacks in the last coupe of years...

Should help ensure a decent NRR in case of washouts.

Crikey...Rashid Khan was 3 behind the worst ever figures in an ODI. That really is a thing.

Alfie, this is worth a read when you have time:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25069098/how-england-turned-tables-spin-bowling-establish-new-odi-dominance

Some stat - Morgan hit 17 6s in that innings. England managed 18 6s in the entire 2015 World Cup!

Good to see Afghanistan giving this target a good try and not just hanging around looking to prolong the game for a misplaced belief that would give them dignity.

England back to joint top of the dropped catches league! Another pretty regulation fail.

Gooseberry wrote:Good to see Afghanistan giving this target a good try and not just hanging around looking to prolong the game for a misplaced belief that would give them dignity.

Stung by my sarcasm Archer goes for 4 6 and 4 ...thats more like it Naib.

There is no point in hanging around if they are gifting chances off defensive strokes.

Alas poor Woakes...Bairstow must have forgotten he didn't have the keeping gloves on as he drops a slip catch he'd normally expect to take in his sleep...
Woakes has been a bit unlucky with drops in this WC.

Hello : Gulbadin giving Archer the treatment ! Ninety mph ...but 4-6-4
...you can see the Afghans are not going to go quietly. Rather go down swinging...

14 runs in 3 balls... the other 14 runs took 33 balls!

alfie wrote:Alas poor Woakes...Bairstow must have forgotten he didn't have the keeping gloves on as he drops a slip catch he'd normally expect to take in his sleep...

I have never seen him in the slips. Wonder if he was not fully concentrating. Keepers do not seem to make great slips with Buttler struggling there in tests last year.

Presuming no rain about this is done...just margin to settle. Leave you fellows to it...hope Rashid gets some wickets ...

Well Naibs doing his chances of a contract for the 100 no harm at least. Someones gonna be very happy with him in the tipping competition of he can do enough to enable them to 297

6 overs to guarantee a result and surely 2 points for England. And the rate Moeen is getting through them that shouldn't take more than 20 minutes. No imminent rain in Manchester, so we'll get a result here.

Game as a contest is over, but it would be good for the spinners to pick up a couple of wickets here to get them into the tournament.

This is all a bit dull isn't it? Afghanistan apparently happy to just have a bit of a net.

Rashid with a wicket, a dreadful full toss toe-ended straight to Bairstow out at deep mid-wicket. I guess you could say Rashid has probably deserved a bit of luck this tournament.

The world cup is truly missing out by not having two teams worse than this at the competition.

Gooseberry wrote:The world cup is truly missing out by not having two teams worse than this at the competition.

I'm sure if the ICC get their way we'll soon see World Cups featuring England, India and Australia and no-one else.

Galted wrote:

Gooseberry wrote:The world cup is truly missing out by not having two teams worse than this at the competition.

I'm sure if the ICC get their way we'll soon see World Cups featuring England, India and Australia and no-one else.

BCCICC wont do away with their 4 yearly humiliation of their nearest nuclear rival

Bit of action at last with these two deciding to have a go at Rashid and Archer. Odd to pick the main two strike bowlers, but i guess they saw what England did to theirs!


Shows some spirit and guts after one of them took a nasty blow to the helmet off Wood not long before

Gooseberry wrote:

Galted wrote:

Gooseberry wrote:The world cup is truly missing out by not having two teams worse than this at the competition.

I'm sure if the ICC get their way we'll soon see World Cups featuring England, India and Australia and no-one else.

BCCICC wont do away with their 4 yearly humiliation of their nearest nuclear rival

Haha, true. Maybe each of the big three will be allowed to bring a little friend to the party.

Saw an excellent piece on Cricket365 earlier re: Afghanistan, and just in light of some rather misinformed comments (hi Goose ) thought I would post, because it is a genuine shame what's happened to them in the build upto and in this tournament.

The story of Afghanistan’s omnishambles of a World Cup is a long and maddening one of political interference, botched selection, shambolic captaincy changes and desperate, seemingly total, loss of direction at the worst possible time.

They’ve been utterly rotten in this tournament and there’s absolutely no getting away from that fact. Their highest score of the tournament is 207, three of their defeats have been massive and the other was against Sri Lanka who are awful. They haven’t even managed to pick up a point from a washout ffs.

But it really didn’t have to be like this. At last year’s Asia Cup they spanked Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and tied with India. They qualified automatically for next year’s T20 World Cup. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating that it’s come to this on the biggest stage for Afghanistan

Another story emerging here too - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/48682483

These flat pitches are a joke and killing ODI cricket.

England now finishing this off nicely. 4 wickets in the last 10 so far as Afghanistan look to accelerate. Unfortunate that Bairstow dropped a couple, but other than that a professional bowling performance. The most expensive guys (Rashid and Archer) were targeted a bit but they've picked up the wickets, along with Mark Wood (who should have had a third).

Interesting graphic shown there - more sixes per match by around 1 per game, at the 2015 World Cup than there has been so far at this one!

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Interesting graphic shown there - more sixes per match by around 1 per game, at the 2015 World Cup than there has been so far at this one!

Flat pitches killing cricket by not enabling as many sixes

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Interesting graphic shown there - more sixes per match by around 1 per game, at the 2015 World Cup than there has been so far at this one!

Although there were more sixes today than in the whole first World Cup.

robbo277 wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Interesting graphic shown there - more sixes per match by around 1 per game, at the 2015 World Cup than there has been so far at this one!

Although there were more sixes today than in the whole first World Cup.

And only 8 teams. Yet it didnt kill cricket.

Gooseberry wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Interesting graphic shown there - more sixes per match by around 1 per game, at the 2015 World Cup than there has been so far at this one!

Flat pitches killing cricket by not enabling as many sixes

The pitches in Australia WC2015 were also a joke.
It's just pathetic, imagine how much more fun matches would be if they used duke ball and normal green english Test match pitches. Anderson would be recalled, Bumrah would be so dangerous etc., and so many talentless ball bashing batsmen would be exposed and sent home.

This format is not particularly exciting. Lots of dead rubbers, and even games that aren't technically dead rubbers like India vs England in group stage are basically irrelevant as both will obviously get top 4.

I sense this is not love.
True it is fizzling out pretty quickly but the lack of surprise results is more to do with the gap between the top few and the mid ranked sides andnthen again to the bottom feeders currently than it is the format itself.

Given the main gripe about this one was cutting the worst of the chaff though....

And it's not like there haven't been results against the bookies. SA lost Eng and the West Indies have all been favourites and lost.

The weather too played a big part in ribbing next best sides an opportunity to press the top 4. The West Indies motivation and morale might have stayed higher if they'd had the probable point off SA and Bangladesh and Pakistan too mightve been closer to touching distance .
But imagine a standard 4 team group stage with that many rain affected games. Yikes.

Its overlong and will drag I wont dispute that. But the right sides will progress and it's not entirely the formats fault. The way to make it shorter more competitive and each game carry more meaning would be even less teams.

The format is pretty terrible TBH. It was pretty much designed to ensure the likes of England and especially India weren't knocked out by one bad result. So in that sense it's at least doing its job (i.e. England lost to Pakistan - a game they were expected to win - but still look like comfortably progressing to the semis). It also ensured that India and England were guaranteed nine games each at least, hence more $$$.

As it is, we're halfway through the group stages, and the top 4 places are all but decided already, making much of the remaining games meaningless. Yes, it's not been helped by the weather and the rather big gap between the top and bottom sides, but it always looked like a ridiculously overbloated format, and it's turned out to be the case.

A much better format IMO would be to have four groups of four, with top 2 in each progressing to a quarter final stage.

But of course the last time they tried something similar India and Pakistan were knocked out in the group stages, so we can't have that again... Oh well.

Eng's batting looks ominous & especially so in last 2 games.

My Theory remains such batting is not sustainable against good sides in World cup/Champions Trophy games

If my theory is incorrect...Lifting the world -cup will be a walk in the park for Eng,
Rest are wasting their time

Mad for Chelsea wrote:The format is pretty terrible TBH. It was pretty much designed to ensure the likes of England and especially India weren't knocked out by one bad result. So in that sense it's at least doing its job (i.e. England lost to Pakistan - a game they were expected to win - but still look like comfortably progressing to the semis). It also ensured that India and England were guaranteed nine games each at least, hence more $$$.

As it is, we're halfway through the group stages, and the top 4 places are all but decided already, making much of the remaining games meaningless. Yes, it's not been helped by the weather and the rather big gap between the top and bottom sides, but it always looked like a ridiculously overbloated format, and it's turned out to be the case.

A much better format IMO would be to have four groups of four, with top 2 in each progressing to a quarter final stage.

But of course the last time they tried something similar India and Pakistan were knocked out in the group stages, so we can't have that again... Oh well.

Agreed. They could have also had two games per day, every day, which would have made the tournament go by nearly twice as quick. Admittedly, that might have made the rain completely ruin the event!

Two games a day is good for who? Not the watching fans.
The teams would want rest days so it would make no difference.

Other formats introduce either infuriating double group stages like the super six or an artificial level of tension by putting more down to luck, one off performances and rain. It's more exciting bit less just from a sporting perspective.
And people do get excited by the big ticket fixtures like Pakistan India. Given they play so infrequently now it would be a shame to miss that through a split group format. People payed over a grand for tickets ...its a game that matters.

And money ...yes undoutably the tournament only exists at all because of money. A small portion of which goes to Afghanistan Nepal and others to enable them to have cricket at all. 5 years ago people proclaimed this format dead and soon to be replaced by T20 which itself is now in danger of being replaced by 10 ball rounders. The tournament will exist only so long as it generates money...as will international cricket of any type. It's not ideal but the world cup is competing with privately financed mercenary leagues. To get the best players it needs to pay.
And the biggest thing that makes it pay? Audience.if theres an audience it's because they are getting a product they want to see, and that's the big nations playing each other and a sense of sporting justice.

It may be set up to ensure the best teams progress but surely they are the best teams on merit and earn that progression by playing the best cricket. If the point of a world cup is to see who is the best then where is the problem?
Again I fancy this is exaggerated because theres a group of 4 teams currently who are light years ahead of others and that's robbed the tournament of what in other years may have been a much tighter contest. Imagine if Aus of last summer were here...that 4th spot would be wide open. Or if SA hadnt lost de Villiers and steyn and morkel and chuck Norris in quick succession. The format would look a lot tighter.

Another thing it does is give Afghanistan and other struggling teams far more games than they wouldve for in previous formats. I'm not convinced that's a good thing to be honest but is disingenuous to say it's all about the top teams. No other format previously used would've given the bottom teams so many games.

Duke Ball. Green pitch. Jimmy Anderson charging in. 3 slips and a gully.

It's another six*!

*A six wicket haul for Jimmy.

I think the format is more about ensuring you get big games that will generate big cash. You get an England vs Australia, an England vs India, 7 other England games, an India vs Pakistan, an Australia vs India, countless other games. Even if Afghanistan, Bangladesh, West Indies and Sri Lanka made the final 4 (for which tickets are already sold) you've already had so many marquee games that you've made a shed load.

The worst format I've seen was in the Rugby League World Cup. The format is extremely contrived. There are 2 pools of 4 with 3 qualifiers each and 2 pools of 3 with 1 qualifier each to get 8 quarter-finalists, but the pools of 4 are stacked with the seeded teams so that you get seeds vs seeds in meaningless pool matches (as they all qualify anyway). I think this has been scrapped next year.

But the equivalent would be:

Pool A - 3 qualifiers
England
Australia
New Zealand
Ireland

Pool B - 3 qualifiers
India
Pakistan
South Africa
Netherlands

Pool C - 1 qualifier
West Indies
Sri Lanka
Zimbabwe

Pool D - 1 qualifier
Bangladesh
Afghanistan
UAE

Decent for squeezing out the maximum marquee games (1 pool isn't an option as games are capped at 1 a week per team), but as a competition structure it doesn't scream fair.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:
A much better format IMO would be to have four groups of four, with top 2 in each progressing to a quarter final stage.

But of course the last time they tried something similar India and Pakistan were knocked out in the group stages, so we can't have that again... Oh well.

Yes that would have been much better. Four groups of 3 perhaps, 12 team line up is maximum for me. And we'd have less games than this format, so enough space for 'reserve days', thus matches wouldn't be rained off.

Also I doubt any big team wouldn't make the last 8. It would be exciting as in a one off match an underdog team like SA/Pakistan/WIndies could pull of an upset and go through to the semis. In this format it's unlikely that any of those 3 are consistent enough, so none of them will reach the semis.

It Must Be Love wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:
A much better format IMO would be to have four groups of four, with top 2 in each progressing to a quarter final stage.

But of course the last time they tried something similar India and Pakistan were knocked out in the group stages, so we can't have that again... Oh well.

Yes that would have been much better. Four groups of 3 perhaps, 12 team line up is maximum for me. And we'd have less games than this format, so enough space for 'reserve days', thus matches wouldn't be rained off.

Also I doubt any big team wouldn't make the last 8. It would be exciting as in a one off match an underdog team like SA/Pakistan/WIndies could pull of an upset and go through to the semis. In this format it's unlikely that any of those 3 are consistent enough, so none of them will reach the semis.

Reserve days isn't just about having a physical day, but also the cost. You need to reserve people's time and equipment time. There's a cost to all that.

Like we all love the world cup after England go out right.....
I really struggle with the idea of giving the viewing public what they want to watch being a bad thing.

One of the above suggestion is pretty much just the champions trophy.

Really tomorrow and Thursday are the last two chances for the group stage to remain interesting beyond jockeying for position in the top four. If New Zealand beat South Africa tomorrow and the Aussies best Bangladesh on Thursday then we got a whole lot of meaningless nonsense coming in the next fortnight

Mad for Chelsea wrote:The format is pretty terrible TBH. It was pretty much designed to ensure the likes of England and especially India weren't knocked out by one bad result. So in that sense it's at least doing its job (i.e. England lost to Pakistan - a game they were expected to win - but still look like comfortably progressing to the semis). It also ensured that India and England were guaranteed nine games each at least, hence more $$$.

As it is, we're halfway through the group stages, and the top 4 places are all but decided already, making much of the remaining games meaningless. Yes, it's not been helped by the weather and the rather big gap between the top and bottom sides, but it always looked like a ridiculously overbloated format, and it's turned out to be the case.

A much better format IMO would be to have four groups of four, with top 2 in each progressing to a quarter final stage.

But of course the last time they tried something similar India and Pakistan were knocked out in the group stages, so we can't have that again... Oh well.

MfC - that was actually the format of the 1966 Football World Cup and we didn't do too badly in that!

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote: then we got a whole lot of meaningless nonsense coming in the next fortnight

I thought we had agreed not to be mean about kpf