Associate Tournaments (I-Cup and WCL Championship 2015-2016/7)

[El Loco]

Woke up late, I'm kicking myself! Don't know who this George Munsey is but it seems like he gave it the good ol' kitchen sink today.

 

[Aislabie]

Woke up late, I'm kicking myself! Don't know who this George Munsey is but it seems like he gave it the good ol' kitchen sink today.

I think at one point he was one not-out off eight or nine balls, then he just went mad. A really clean hitter of a cricket ball, but he also built an innings

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Well that was a great win by Afghanistan. From being 14 odd in 4 overs to 160 runs and winning by 30 runs when the opposition was 60 odd for 1 in 8 overs. Good all round effort

 

[Aislabie]

Long gone are the days when Associate cricket was just about gentle medium-pacers. Each of the four Group B sides televised so far has at least one bowler that has either hit or got very close to 90 mph:

Hamid Hassan, Dawlat Zadran, Shapoor Zadran
Timm van der Gugten
Alasdair Evans
Mohammad Naveed

And any criticisms of drawing in "passport players" is unfounded, too - Timm van der Gugten is the only one of those not born in the country they are representing. In the other group, there is definitely less raw pace on offer - Ireland don't really have anyone like that since England poached Rankin, and nor I think do PNG or Hong Kong. Mukhiya and Kami have some pace for Nepal, as does Karan Khatra Chhetri, but not quite 90 mph stuff.

All the same, these first few days of games have been a great advert for non-Test cricket.

 

[PokerAce]

How many qualify.

I would think Afghanistan would go through easy. Holland or Scotland too should be in for the ride.

 

[Aislabie]

How many qualify.

I would think Afghanistan would go through easy. Holland or Scotland too should be in for the ride.

Six qualify for the eight-team pre-tournament bullshitathon to try to get into the Super 10. It could be three from each group, or it could be a two-four split depending how the play-offs pan out.

 

[IceAgeComing]

pre-tournament bullshitathon

this is the official name for "Round 1", I believe

 

[PokerAce]

Have I mentioned how I just love the Afghan cricket team. I really do.

 

[Aislabie]

Ahsan Malik has been reported for chucking. Not a huge surprise really, although there do seem to be some inconsistencies regarding whether or not he is allowed to keep bowling. He has been banned for the rest of the tournament - what happened to innocent until proven guilty?

 

[IceAgeComing]

Have I mentioned how I just love the Afghan cricket team. I really do.

They were meant to play at my local club today, but its chucked with rain all day

Its funny that its actually been quite a nice summer so far... bar the days where they've tried to play cricket!

 

[PokerAce]

Yeah I had bet on the Afg vs Kenya game, shame it was washed out.

I like Ireland too, frankly they are too strong a side to be an associate, clearly head and shoulders above everyone else. On their day, I fancy they would give atleast Zimbabwe, B'desh and WI a good run in a test match.

I would like like Afg to get test status too, but then again, who will go to Afghanistan to play. They recently had their parliament attacked, there is no way they could guarantee the safety of a visiting side.

Were you planning on going to the game?

 

[IceAgeComing]

I was yeah; its about an hours walk or a ten minute bus away so if it looked nice I planned to walk there with my lunch and watch both games: but it was chucking it down when I got up and you could just tell that they'd struggle to get any play - the place is a literal club ground and with the amount of rain there was even at a proper international quality ground like the Grange they'd have struggled to have got even one full game in, never mind two

 

[Aislabie]

Big result coming in from Edinburgh.

Oman have defeated the Netherlands. One of the players I identified before the tournament as one to watch (Jatinder Singh) has got the runs for them, but the real deciding factor was the Oman death bowling - the Dutch lost five wickets for one run in the last two overs of their innings. A big result which throws Group B wide open.

 

[themusketeer]

I haven't seen any matches yet but i see scorecards while scoring for the FC game. This tournament is turning out quite interesting. Oman defeating Netherlands was a bit of a surprise . USA winning a match in just 6 overs against Nepal etc.

 

[IceAgeComing]

Cricinfo is useless in things like this

Went up to the ground to see Canada-UAE; cricinfo on my phone was telling me that it was the change of innings so I thought I'd have a nice couple of hours. Arrive; get sat down to see Shakoor hit the winning runs through the covers. I was there for literally a minute!