WC2007: Super 8

[Damo01]

Looks like we're going to have to go the hard way to reach the semis, but I think we can beat Australia.

I do too. I was one of the only people who said we could beat them in CB Series and look what happened. We just need one of those days were everything clicks.

Things has changed for Australia ever since the Commonwealth Bank and the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy Series. Considering the fact that hayden is in excellent form and a dangerous batsman out there right now throughout the ICC world Cup 2007 tournament because his bashing high score (over 150 runs) he getting lately is becoming phenomenal as a threat to other teams.

I say Australia probably is looking for a comeback against their loss against England, New Zealand and to win the 2007 cup.

 

[irottev]

Vaughan never has been a good ODI player, all the potential in the world just never has adapted to the ODI arena.

I myself doubt his potential. He's so consistantly bad, that if he scores a 50+ it's a surprise to me. If he was in the Aussie or NZ side, he'd probably be batting at 9. Infact he wouldn't be in the side at all.

 

[Sureshot]

Some of you seem to be.

I can understand frustration. But if your going to be frustrated, be frustrated that your players didn't finish the job, not that the opposition bowler possibly lost his run up with all the pressure he was under.

So we aren't allowed to show any emotion when we lose a game we should've won?

Oh and he didn't lose his run up irottev, he did it on purpose, grinning all the way, his action was identical to how his normal one is, he just didn't release the ball.

 

[BigCrickNan]

What happened to strauss? DROP JOYCE FOR GODS SAKE!

We dropped Strauss because he was doing exactly what Vaughan and Joyce were doing, batting slowly then getting out for about 20. In my opinion he isn't good enough but he's the only option with Vaughan and Joyce playing like village cricketers.

 

[The_gas]

He was out of order. Gamesmanship or cheating? Fine line.

All credit to Nicko and Bopara though, almost digging us out of the hole that the upper order got us into yet again. I say promote KP up to 3, even open with him, to try and give us some momentum at the start of the innings.

Spot on, i think if he hadn't done that, bopara would have at least picked up two runs.

Still we played really well when bowling. Shame our batting let us down. Thats this world cup over for us now.

 

[PhilD123]

I listened to the last 20 overs of the England innings on Five Live Sports Extra, so haven't actually seen the incident where Fernando pulled out. I am presuming that Bopara actually started playing the shot then?

What a fantastic innings it was by Bopara and also by Nixon, to come back and almost win from the position that was set by the openers and the wrecklessness of KP and Flintoff. I'd like to see Bopara definitely ahead of Freddie in the batting order, last night it would have been good if Flintoff came in with about 5 overs to spare, but because of him batting at six, he came in early and went for another tame dismissal.

 

[aussie_ben91]

I don't see how Pietersen was wreckless when he batted at a strike-rate of 72 and one spliced off the edge of his bat when he was trying to force one through midwicket.

I've always liked the idea of Pietersen at 3. That's where you play you're best batsman and it doesn't get much better then Kevin Pietersen.

 

[PhilD123]

I don't see how Pietersen was wreckless when he batted at a strike-rate of 72 and one spliced off the edge of his bat when he was trying to force one through midwicket.

Because he didn't need to do that from the bowling of Murali, he should have waited until the best spinner in the world wasn't bowling : His ego got in the way of England's position.

 

[barmyarmy]

Because he didn't need to do that from the bowling of Murali, he should have waited until the best spinner in the world wasn't bowling : His ego got in the way of England's position.

I don't agree with that entirely. It was during a powerplay and England clearly felt that had to make the most of it - something they've been criticised for not doing.
As it was in this game they were chasing a small enough target for it to not really matter about the third power play and they could have kept knocking the 1s and 2s. I don't blame KP; he's got 50 again and without that we'd have got nowhere near.

 

[aussie_ben91]

It wasn't as if he jumped round the wicket and tried to reverse sweep him over deep square-leg for six with basically only one hand on the bat was it? :

 

[evertonfan]

For once i'm going to agree with Irrotev here. Although Fernando clearly cheated on that last 'ball' it still doesn't deter from the fact that we should have chased that target down before it came to the last ball. And though it was a 2 run defeat the bottom line is that we still lost and are further in the crapper in this tournament. I say we open with Bell and Strauss and put Vaughan at 3 for the Australia game as despite Vaughan being one of the worst ODI batsman ever, he always turns up against Australia.

 

[irottev]

So we aren't allowed to show any emotion when we lose a game we should've won?

Oh and he didn't lose his run up irottev, he did it on purpose, grinning all the way, his action was identical to how his normal one is, he just didn't release the ball.

You seem to have misread my post. I said feel frustrated, but the ones to blame are your own team in this circumstance. The game even going to the last ball in such an average run chase was bad. That should have been easy. Even if SL had 2 pretty good bowlers, Almost every team has 2.

Needing 3 off the last ball is bad pacing. I'm sure your all over it now anyway. Time to move on.

 

[PhilD123]

I don't agree with that entirely. It was during a powerplay and England clearly felt that had to make the most of it - something they've been criticised for not doing.
As it was in this game they were chasing a small enough target for it to not really matter about the third power play and they could have kept knocking the 1s and 2s. I don't blame KP; he's got 50 again and without that we'd have got nowhere near.

The thing is though, he'd already hit a four in that over, more 1's and 2's would have made quite a good over having already hit the boundary, especially against a bowler such as Murali.

He's gotta convert 50's into 100's. His last ODI hundred was in the ODI series against South Africa, thats a long way back and he's made a hell of a lot of 50's since then.

 

[barmyarmy]

The thing is though, he'd already hit a four in that over, more 1's and 2's would have made quite a good over having already hit the boundary, especially against a bowler such as Murali.

He wasn't trying to smack it miles. He was working it to leg and it caught the leading edge as it was the doosra not the off break.

 

[PhilD123]

He wasn't trying to smack it miles. He was working it to leg and it caught the leading edge as it was the doosra not the off break.

Yeah you're right I guess. No one can blame him for not picking Murali!