Category Archives: world cup 2011

The Best Opponents in World Cup Knockout Matches

Posted on by

Question: What happens when two immovable objects meet each other?
Answer: The one with the bigger reputation stays where it is.

In the match between perpetual WC knockout match losers, South Africa finally removed the thorn from their side. It is not fun when New Zealand shares the top spot for giving it up when it really matters. And after having some laughs, the Saffers went from 108/2 to 172 all out, losing by a staggering 49 runs chasing 222.

So here is the record: Won 30 of 42 group-stage matches. Won zero of 5 knockout matches.

To rewind, the tragic performances of South Africa at the World Cup:

1992: South Africa needed a plausible 22 off 13 balls to beat England in the semi-final. Rain interrupted play, and when it resumed, the rain rule converted the target to an impossible 21 runs off 1 ball.

1996: A masterpiece from Lara and South Africa lose by 19 runs. Remember that the West Indies had a terrible tournament: winning only 2 matches in the group stage, albeit one versus Australia, losing against Kenya and ending up as the last qualifier in their group.

1999: The drop that cost them the match against Australia in the Super Six which meant that the crazy run-out that lead to the tie against the same opponent in the semi-final ended their tournament.

2003: Tight loss against West Indies, Stephen Fleming, inability to understand the D/L target and Kenya’s surprising surge (aided by NZ’s forfeit) meant that South Africa failed to qualify for the knockouts in the tournament it was hosting.

2007: I guess they ran out of gas as demonstrated by their loss against Bangladesh and in any case, ended up against Australia again in the semi-finals, losing by 7 wickets and almost 19 overs remaining.

2011: In case you forgot, South Africa topped the group with 5 big wins (7 wickets, 231 runs, 131 runs, 206 runs and even the 3 wicket win against India chasing close to 300). Their only loss came against the maverick fighting-for-their-lives England team who they had already dispatched for just 171. Among the possible qualifiers from Group B, New Zealand seemed to be the most harmless until it all ended in a few crazy overs.

Ricky Ponting Should Have Quit While He Was Ahead

Posted on by

Going by Australia’s performances in this World Cup, they didn’t look like the marauding gang of 2003 and 2007, nor like the exciting die-harders of 1999. If they had gone to win this World Cup, it would have been injustice. Well, consider justice served. The World Cup will finally have a new name after a decade of Australian dominance. Which brings me to a hypothetical about Ricky Ponting.

What if Ponting had retired after the 2007 World Cup? Today, he would be remembered thus:

  • Lead Australia to two impeccable World Cup victories and was part of another winning team (1999) and a losing finalist (1996)
  • Lost only 3 Tests: a dead rubber against India in Mumbai and two in the close 2005 Ashes series (both tight losses – 2 runs and 3 wickets).
  • Captain of Australia when they destroyed almost every opponent in Tests, including South Africa (2-0 and 3-0 home and away). Was part of the only Australian team to win in India in recent times (only captained the last Test)
  • Lots and lots of runs in both forms of the game, with some great knocks like the huge century in the 2003 final.
  • Batting statistics compared very favorably with Tendulkar and, at one point, it was plausible that Ponting could have overtaken him in total runs and centuries.

Now, as he goes off into the sunset, here is his record

  • Lost the Ashes three times (twice away, once at home), including the only time ever when a team has lost three matches by an innings.
  • Lost in India twice.
  • Lost at home to South Africa.
  • Gave away a match to Pakistan.
  • Never did anything much with the Twenty20 World Cup.
  • Saw Tendulkar pull away in the Test records quickly and beyond reach, while his own record slumped to “great, but mortal” status.

Full disclosure: I don’t really like Ponting that much – in fact, I don’t like him at all. So this is all good. Ponting owed a lot of his success to having a team of greats (Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist), and if he had quit earlier, he would have had an undeserved legacy. As it happened, he was exposed after the retirements of the senior players. Now, he will be remembered, but not too fondly.

I suspect that Australia will have to go through at least a couple of captains before they start climbing back to the top. There is a sense that Australia’s code has been cracked and i don’t think Michael Clarke can turn that around. None of the other existing players look like captaincy material at this point, so we will have to wait a while.

Group A vs Group B

Posted on by

This World Cup has been better than the last, but the entire credit should go to Group B. If you consider close matches and upsets, there were only 2 matches out of 21 in Group A when compared to 9 in Group B. Adding around 3 matches in either group which promised to be interesting (such as the Pakistan v Canada match) until one team finally won comfortably, about half the matches in Group B were interesting while that goes down to once every 5 matches in Group A. We had to wait till the penultimate match in Group B to know the quarter-finalists where as in Group A, that was known with 4 matches left to play.

The twist is that Group A ended up with the teams ranked out of order to their strength on paper (Australia ending up 3rd and Canada above Kenya). And Group B almost exactly to what you might have predicted before the tournament. (you can quibble where SA or India is better).

To see how different the two groups played, here are a couple of illustrations on how close the matches were (Green = close/upset, Blue = promising, Red = walkover). Thank God for England!

Group A Group B
Group A matches in World Cup 2011 Group B matches in World Cup 2011

Blood is Thicker Than Water

Posted on by

When Kamran Akmal has such a hold on the Pakistani selectors, is it such a surprise that his brother is doing what he needs to do:

A finger injury to Umar Akmal has lessened the chances of him replacing brother Kamran as Pakistan’s wicketkeeper… Though the injury to Umar’s right index finger is not thought to be serious, it is unlikely now that the management will risk using him behind the stumps, allowing Kamran to probably retain his place in the XI despite his horror show in the 110-run loss to New Zealand on Tuesday.[...]

According to manager Intikhab Alam, scans and an x-ray revealed no damage but no risks were taken in putting him through a practice session.[...]

The timing and consequence of Umar’s injury is bound to raise eyebrows, especially in light of what happened after the infamous Sydney Test in early January 2010. Then, after another poor display behind the stumps from Kamran hurled the side towards a stunning Test defeat, Umar reportedly refused to play the next Test in Hobart if his brother was dropped.

 

Did India Qualify for the Quarter-Finals?

Posted on by

I was curious when Cricinfo stated that India qualified right after they won today’s match, but a few seconds later, all mention of that disappeared. So went back to my old stats program to try all possible combinations of the remaining matches (win, draw, tie) and it seems India is pretty much there – only 6 of almost 19.7 thousand possibilities lead to India missing out on the next round. Here is the full output:

        1st     2nd     3rd     4th     5th     6th     7th   In QF
IND  60.93%  22.51%  13.38%   3.15%   0.03%   0.00%   0.00%  99.97%
WIN  20.23%  26.66%  20.77%  19.17%   9.64%   3.52%   0.00%  86.84%
ENG   3.16%  22.94%  27.19%  32.37%  11.58%   2.76%   0.00%  85.66%
SAF  15.52%  22.89%  25.96%  20.03%  10.03%   5.57%   0.00%  84.40%
IRE   0.09%   2.51%   6.78%  13.72%  39.11%  33.81%   3.98%  23.10%
BAN   0.08%   2.48%   5.91%  11.56%  28.37%  46.93%   4.66%  20.04%
NED   0.00%   0.00%   0.00%   0.00%   1.23%   7.41%  91.36%   0.00%

2011 World Cup Format Much Better than 2007

Posted on by

The ICC seem to have learnt something from the 2007 World Cup fiasco by coming up with a new format for the 2011 World Cup. Last time, we had this 6-week marathon that was marred by the pre-mature departure of India and Pakistan. This time, there will be no such thing – the eliminations will happen late in the game and we will be guaranteed matches between the main cricket nations.

So here are the groups:

Group A: Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada, Kenya

Group B: India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands

The top four in each group advance to the quarter-finals. So the final winner will have to win three consecutive knock-out matches which may help someone stop Australia this time. The only bad news is that one semi-final is supposed to be played at the R Premadasa Stadium, where winning the toss will be key, unless they come up with something. I really hope they fix it, because it could come back to bite them, if Sri Lanka reach the semis and is forced to chase.

Group A seems pretty harmless for the top teams. At this moment, it doesn’t seem that Zimbabwe, Canada or Kenya can do any serious damage to the other teams. However, there is always the danger of rain and an upset combining to take out one of the top 4.

Though that seems more likely to happen in Group B which seems to be the more exciting group. There is the potential for many upsets. Bangladesh definitely can win against one or more of the top teams at home. Ireland is always dangerous – we saw that in 2007 and this year’s T20 WC. Netherlands is also improving enough to give someone a scare.

Pity South Africa. Group B does seem like a choke-field for them. Two tough matches against India and England and a tricky one against the West Indies. A possible loss to Bangladesh at home. Rain washing out an Ireland or Holland match. And they are out once again!

Finally, I am glad that they did away with the Super Eights this time. It is nonsense to have two round-robin leagues in the same tournament. The soccer World Cup has a short set of group matches and then it is all knock-out. They have 64 matches and almost all of them are meaningful.