Tag Archives: world cup 2011

Group A vs Group B

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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

Did India Qualify for the Quarter-Finals?

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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%

Dravid Dropped from ODIs

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And so the soap opera continues to unfold.

This is just another example of why India is on the path to destroying their hopes of winning the World Cup on home soil. Instead of building a strong core team and finding backups, they decided to go with Dravid for short-term gains. The gains didn’t materialize and lots of time lost.

As of this moment, India has the following:

  • No set of primary team members who are available all the time for critical matches.
  • No strategy of backup players for essential team members.
  • No fixed team structure, as in no batting order.
  • A captain under siege.
  • No unique strategies or tactics.

Count in me as not impressed.

2011 World Cup Format Much Better than 2007

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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.