ICC World TwentyT20 2009, England (5th June to 21st June)

[Sandeep]

Rohit has again shown what a superb player he is. IMO, he is easily the most talented batsmen we have in the country today. He should be played at No.3 through out this world cup. He is developing into a great player. Go Rohit

[genius]

you mean by bowling those length balls??????? the batsmen had a field day much to my annoyance.atleast praveen has bowled some good death overs in the past .i don't think rp is up to it.

none of the indian bowlers have demonstrated a consistent ability to bowl that fuller length between a full toss and a half volley and get under the batsman.it suited akram's action perfectly and he tormented india for 15 years. gul and tanvir still do it for pakistan.i wonder why the indian bowling thinkthank continues to fail in this regard after decades.

ishant can do it.but who will give him the secret?

i would like to see kamran and atul sharma in within the next year despite lack of FC experience. when the ball doesn't swing, the others look pedestrian and it become vital to see either ishant or zaheer plays.

and btw, i was even more horrified by hearing of the most horrible pieces of judgement ever echoed by a international cricketer. yesterday manjrekar at the beginning of the indian innings was commenting that misbah and arafat's late hitting may have put the total past india's! and when every other commentator kept saying it was a batting beauty and it was a par score at best.and even without them saying it, it was pretty evident to me. was he sleeping thru the first half? and is that how he thinks? may well explain why he never ended up as a great by failing spectacularly inthe alien conditions of SA and aus..

[infomercialscams]

I will go for a India,South africa

[Sandeep]

Netherlands is batting beautifully, will we see an upset here. Chasing 163 they are 62/2 after 7.2 overs. England's batting was poor today, they have to improve drastically to even compete with the rest of the teams. Go Netherlands!!!

[kujo]

And Netherlands wins the opener against England in World cup T20! Last ball, 2 runs to win and they run the second run due to an overthrow by the bowler!! Nice upset.

[Sandeep]

Wow, is it curtains for England in this edition of T20 world cup. They have to win comfortably against Pakistan which itself is a tough job and then hope Pakistan beats Netherlands with a big margin.

There are three matches today NZ Vs Scot, AUS Vs WI and IND Vs BAN . NZ should be able to win easily but the other two are very good matches. Go IND

[prasen9]

Read about the idiocy of England here: http://www.cricinfo.com/wt202009/conten ... 07652.html. Andrew Miller writes it well; every word is true. Look at the first quote wrt Adil Rashid by Collingwood. They decided to rest Pieterson. Somehow they do not like Bell anymore. Good that the idiots lost. This weekend there will possibly be a lot of rain and EvP may be washed out. People who take games easily are tanking games in a sense; they should be banned. This is the world cup for God's sake. The rest of the world does not give a damn about Ashes. In 10-20 years time, twenty20 WCs will have as much prestige if not more than the ODI WCs, i.e., if nation-based competitions remain at all and do not become a sideshow to club-based competitions. And even if the nation-based competitions go away, the WCs will remain as the only things people pay attention to. History will show this awful performance by England. Not to take anything away from the gutsy Dutch; hope they go long (but not at India's expense, obviously).

And they will possibly lose the Ashes 5-0 or something like that.

[prasen9]

Despite the captain and Gambhir's best efforts, India scored 180/5 against Bangladesh. Otherwise, how do you explain when Yusuf was sent in when a over and a few balls were left and he scored 1 off 1 ball? Our most explosive batsman should be kept under wraps. Thanks to Yuvraj, Irfan, and a solid start by Rohit India reaches 9. Raina, Dhoni, and Gambhir played a role at keeping the score down below 200.

Bangladesh 55/2 in 6 overs. Ishant strikes. Need Harbhajan and Ojha to do something. ... Ojha gets a wicket in his first ball in Twenty20 Internationals. Ishant has bowled well. ... Ojha gets two wickets in his first over in Twenty20 Internationals. Must be some kind of record? ... Ojah takes one more. Brilliant catch by Yuvraj. ... And now a simple dolly dropped by Yuvraj.

[prasen9]

Yuvraj took another good catch. Ishant was not very good in the last over. So the concerns of opening and closing bowlers remains. My MoM would be Ojha; they will possibly give it to Yuvraj. ... At the end, Pragyan gets it. Junaid Siddiqui batted very well. He is either very good or in very good form (or perhaps both). Along with Tamim, Bangladesh has a very good opening pair. If they could get a few more batsmen, then it would not be fireworks followed by load-shedding everyday.

[akmohanty]

[quote="prasen9"]Despite the captain and Gambhir's best efforts, India scored 180/5 against Bangladesh. Raina, Dhoni, and Gambhir played a role at keeping the score down below 200.
quote]
I don't think i quite like the idea of dhoni coming at no.3 as he does so ferquently nowadays. probably, his thinking is that if gambhir is still there, they could have a left-right combination (instead of a left-left if raina was sent in). however, i feel that he puts himself under a lot of pressure by trying to play the anchor forcibly. there was ample evidence of this during the IPL where he looked lost quite often and ended up underperforming. he should let raina, yuvraj and pathan come before him unless there's a genuine need to stabilise the innings due to losing wickets early.

[prasen9]

Whatever they do, they should send Yusuf at around over #15 at least, if he has not batted earlier. Especially because the run rate was quite down, I thought that Yusuf should have been sent instead of Raina. This wicket had nothing in it for the pace bowlers. A team with a bit more depth would have run India close because Irfan and Zaheer were bowling crap.

[PKBasu]

The T20I World Cup has already seen a couple of brilliant results. I watched the Dutch chase down England's total in superb manner -- pacing the innings quite brilliantly, but adding a bit to the tension with a late flurry of wickets. I had a big Indian Writers' festival I was anchoring in Singapore in the evening, so missed all the action yesterday (including Leander's stirring triumph), but the Windies victory over Australia could possibly send the Aussies out of the competition in the first round itself -- as I don't see the Aussies beating Sri Lanka. Sensational stuff!

[prasen9]

England is through to the next round. I hope Netherlands beat Pak. After their gutsy display, I am with the Dutch. Australia play Sri Lanka to stay alive in the Group of Death. The stupidity of ranking the minnows before West Indies has been shown up. I hope the Aussies play Siddle, Hilfenhaus, Hauritz and one of Bracken or Johnson. Lee did not seem to have regained form and this is too crucial a match to stay with old loyalties. Of course, I would be happy to see the Aussies lose and SL and WI qualify fromt hat round.

[prasen9]

Somehow some of these idiots have to get it in their brain that this is a WC and not just "fun". England got a rude awakening, so did Australia. Now, Pak whose captain said that this is just a fun tournament, gets what they deserve: see here. I am sure the next game they will come back with more passion. But, whether that would be enough for the team of Misbah, Gul, Sohail, I do not know. Netherlands needs to lose by more than 60 runs or so. I am sure the Dutch will give it their all. Will Pakistan?

[kujo]

Does anyone remember what is the best way for Netherlands to move into next round, assuming their captain wins the toss? Should they bat first or bowl first?

kujo