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Cricket... the game, not the insect

 
 
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Test Cricket is about batting failing to score all the time.
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I strongly disagree. Test cricket is about defending your wicket (for batsmen), or about getting batsmen out (for the bowlers and the fielders).

Limited overs cricket is about runs. Test cricket, much less so - the winner in a test is the first team to bowl their opponents out twice, and if neither team can do this in the time allotted, the match is drawn - which is a very common occurrence.
 
bilby said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
Test Cricket is about batting failing to score all the time.
Click to expand...
I strongly disagree. Test cricket is about defending your wicket (for batsmen), or about getting batsmen out (for the bowlers and the fielders).
Click to expand...
It isn't as funny that way though.
bilby said:
Limited overs cricket is about runs. Test cricket, much less so...
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Unless you are captained by Ben Stokes.
bilby said:
- the winner in a test is the first team to bowl their opponents out twice...
Click to expand...
If the first team batting has the lead after their second innings, that statement isn't true. The team with the most runs, if the losing team has been bowled out is the winner.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
bilby said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
Test Cricket is about batting failing to score all the time.
Click to expand...
I strongly disagree. Test cricket is about defending your wicket (for batsmen), or about getting batsmen out (for the bowlers and the fielders).
Click to expand...
It isn't as funny that way though.
bilby said:
Limited overs cricket is about runs. Test cricket, much less so...
Click to expand...
Unless you are captained by Ben Stokes.
bilby said:
- the winner in a test is the first team to bowl their opponents out twice...
Click to expand...
If the first team batting has the lead after their second innings, that statement isn't true. The team with the most runs, if the losing team has been bowled out is the winner.
Click to expand...
What I meant to say was that you cannot win without bowling your opponents out twice.

Only if both teams achieve that feat do runs matter; Hence the ability to declare - a test captain can decide that his team has enough runs on the board, and that his time is better spent trying to get wickets than it is trying to get any more runs; And the follow-on - a captain can choose to keep bowling at his opponent, rather than going in to bat, if that opponent is clearly inferior at defending their wickets after both teams have been in once.

Test cricket is primarily about wickets. Limited overs cricket is primarily about runs.

Of course, there are secondary considerations that can influence the final result, but that's the key reason why people who like cricket, hate 20 (or 50) over matches.
 
With rain in the Ireland fixture, the US qualified for the Super Eight, which is utterly unexpected. Pakistan is going to be asking lots of questions. The US will be in a group with England, South Africa, and West Indies. The other big news is that Bangladesh moves on while New Zeeland doesn't.

It is hard to really get a feel for what any of this means, whether there is parity or whether this was a complete waste of time. The other group is Bangladesh, India, Australia, and Afghanistan. So while we've definitely whittled a lot of dead wood like Uganda, Oman, and Scotland, the final 8 don't look Super.
 
US held tight with South Africa, losing by 18 runs. South Africa wasn't able to capture the huge usual take in the last few overs, where as the US were down 76-5 (11.1), and managed to turn the collapse into a possible though unlikely comeback. That was mainly done via the bat of Gous in the second half of the chase.

I'm completely unaware of where the US is finding this.
 
And the US collapses, falling to West Indies and England like a rock. Don't know whether they were finally figured out, but their performance what was expected in the Tournament from the get go. But congrats a rather over their weight class performance. Afghanistan and Bangladesh play the final game to set the finals. Afghanistan can move on and replace Australia with a solid win against Bangladesh.
 
Cricket press in England seems like hockey press in Montreal, relentless and ready to trebuchet captains and coaches into the Channel at moments notice. The failure of England in this white ball tournament has officially been declared prematurely called. Granted, it hasn't been all too glorious and we need to apply an asterisk.

Their match against Australia (who are now out) was their only loss in group stage. Thanks to a ridiculously deep team lineup, England then beat up on Namibia and Oman to move on. Wonderful! In the Super Eight, they dispatched West Indies in a close-ish match, loss a close one to South Africa, and then tore the US into shreds. So Six games, two losses, four wins, only one against a good team. They are actually 1-3 against good teams. Which begs one to wonder how in the hell are they in the semi-finals. And the answer is a bloated list of nations at this tournament allowed them a chance to lose to good teams and beat the bad ones to heck.

Onto the semi's.

England face India in the semi's and Afghanistan and South Africa take up the other semi-final. India v South Africa would be safe money for the T20 final.
 
Congrats to Afghanistan for beating Australia for the first time at any form of cricket :slowclap::slowclap:. We took them too lightly and played badly. Dropped catches lose matches. Leaving Starc out was a mistake. Now we need to beat India to stay in.
 
Australia is out of the T20 World Cup!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:flooffrown::eek::eek::eek::eek::mad:

India beating us meant we relied upon others to do the right thing and they did not do us any favours.

Piccard facepalm small.png
 
South Africa weren't screwing around. They annihilated Afghanistan like they were Oman's U-12 squad. Bowled them out in less than 12 overs for 56 runs. OUCH! South Africa managed the chase.

Currently the weather is helping England remain in the tournament just a little bit longer. England won the toss and choose to bowl. If India's innings are rained out, England will be required to score an infinite number of runs to beat out India's zero according to the Duckworth-Lewis system which is susceptible to a divide by zero issue.
 
India handled England with relative ease to set up the predictable South Africa v India final. Outcome of this game is uncertain. Both have owned the tournament which in my opinion sucked, even by lowly T-20 standards. The diluted team pool ruined this.
 
So, Pakistan v England. In Pakistan. The Pakistanis open up with a 556, three players with over a century. England is deep in a hole. So they go up and whack out 823... declared! Root hits for 262, Brook for 317, which makes Crawley's and Duckett's 78 and 84 seem inadequate. But it is Day 4! It takes a while for teams to score nearly 1400 runs. It should be noted that England's 823 was scored at a fear pace at nearly 1 run a ball!

But still, this looks like Draw City. England had declared (still Day Four) and then got Pakistan to 152-6 by the end of Day Four, which is a veritable miracle based on how the game had been going, because the bowlers were being handed their lunch.

Root and Brook partnered for 454 runs, which is the fourth highest partnership in the sport's history.
 
India managed to spank Australia... (1-0), well, in one innings. Then Australia spanked India (1-1). Australia was then spanking India, in between rain showers. Australia needed a miracle to finish off India in between the rain, which including forcing a follow on. Steve Smith's drop of what was generally a sure catch for him at the start of Day 4 was a bad sign for miracle making. Later on, Indian bowlers proved again, you never count them out when they are at bat. They did enough to make it very improbable for Australia to win. The series moves to Match 4 where we'll see if the rain takes a 2-1-1 lead in the series.

On the road, England apparently beat the Kiwis... but that wasn't available on Willow. England is killing it with this whole run a ball thing (well, 5 an over).
 
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Australia was extremely unlucky in this match. The continual rain breaks probably added up to two full days lost (plus also some time loss to light), then Hazlewood got injured in training, so they were short a bowler for last two days, which probably contributed to India avoiding the follow-on (that was the true miracle, as the final two Indian batsman hung on very well). Then of course because they were forced to bat, the Aussies in their second innings seemed to think the object of the game was to lose your wickets.
 
bilby said:
And to consider victory to be of great import would be barbaric.
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That is true. Winning is not everything. The way each player of the two teams has played is interesting. Nothing wrong with 50 over Cricket or 20 over Cricket, though I have not digested the 10 over Cricket (it has not come to India). Each game has its own strategy.
Limited over Cricket also is about defending your wicket (for batsmen), or about getting batsmen out (for the bowlers and the fielders).
Runs have to come fast in limited overs, in tests, it is a long duel.

Indian Cricket is in doldrums these days, two of its senior batsmen, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli not being able to achieve much. They are around the end of their test career. One of its main bowlers (Ravichandran Ashwin - Spin) has announced his retirement after the Brisbane test, another (Md. Shami - Pace) is carrying injury. The fate of Indian team will be decided by how the other teams play.

TeamMWLDPTPCT
SA106317663.33
AUS1594210658.89
IND1796211455.89
NZ147708148.21
 
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