International Cricket is a poorly administered, marketed and
managed sport that is going down the gurgler.
That being said, it sometimes has weeks as entertaining as the one it
has just offered up, helping the viewer only see the fireworks – not the
burning launch pad.
It’s been a great week on the field, and here are the
highlights:
England win an ODI
Series
If you told me 2 months ago that England, so bad at ODI
Cricket that they’d started picking Jockeys in the team, would beat the ODI
World Cup Finalist…well, I probably would have asked you which bookmaking firm
you worked for.
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| Remember this? I do. |
Full credit to England though, they picked a young and
energetic team that was full of promise and encouraged them to play exciting
cricket. The results of the games were
unexpected, with England regularly scoring lots of runs and limiting New
Zealand from doing so.
If England are able to move this momentum to the Test arena
I may have to jump back off the Black Caps bandwagon and insist Phar Lap is Australian while sending back Russel Crowe permanently.
The turn around in fortunes in this English team is truly
startling and credit must go to their Australian coach and Irish Captain. Yay, England!
Are India the new
Pakistan?
As mentioned above, Bangladesh beat England to move into the
World Cup Finals where they eventually lost out to India. Aside from that victory though, Bangladesh
have been playing some really good limited overs cricket, beating India in this
ODI series 2-0.
So how good are Bangladesh?
It’s hard to tell when their opponent is India, the team that seems to
care about consistency only when home fans are around. Or bookmakers. Or maybe the two.
When these two teams met in the World Cup finals, India made
302 then rolled Bangladesh for 193 in 45 overs.
In this series the Bangladeshi’s reversed this form and
looked a class above their opponents, which shouldn’t be taken away from them –
but it really is hard to judge where they are at when their opponents don’t
seem to care.
Are Pakistan the new
Australia?
With International cricket flailing around madly around
them, Pakistan arrived in Sri Lanka and started a Test series between two
evenly matched teams with a win.
To add some cream to the top of an already creamy, but not
too-creamy, cake – they did so after losing a day to rain.
They also managed to win the game on the back of some
excellent fast-bowling from Shane Watson-tormentor (and, by extension, the most
popular Pakistani in Australia) Wahab Riaz and leg-spinner Yasir Shah.
Test team dominance through the success of a fast bowler and
a leg-spinner? Remind you of anyone?
If they can get some consistency there could be some truly
scary cricket ahead.
Ashes warm up:
Icebergs ahead!
After smashing the West Indies in a manner so brutal that it
may have sent the sport in the region back a few years, the Australian cricket
squad arrived in England this week to prepare for the Ashes.
Some of the Players took to the Isle of Wight for a warm-up match, which saw Chris Rogers score some runs and Ryan Harris get hit for some.
Similar to the series between Bangladesh and India, it is difficult to take too
much out of this game, but rather wonder how different it could have been if it
was held at the Isle of Wight Monkey Haven.
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| A personal dream of mine. |
Otherwise, the lead-up to the Ashes is going to schedule
with ex-England spinner Graeme Swann stating that Australian batsman Steve
Smith is no good. Given that Swann
retired when he was too scared to face Australian quick bowlers and Smith is
currently the number one batsman in the world, there is little to support what
Swann says, apart from a burning desire to be in the media.
Claims like this do make him seem all tip and no iceberg
though.
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| Artists impression of Graeme Swann |
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