England v West Indies, Match Review and Match Track…..

It was Brian Lara’s final international match, and if Cricinfo is to be believed, it ended in an “epic defeat” for the West Indies. Both batting sides disappointed even though 600 runs were scored in the game. If you look at it, any significant innings – be it Vaughan, Pietersen, Samuels or Gayle, was scored at better than a run a ball. Only Devon Smith made 50+ at a strike rate of less than hundred. The top four sides in the world right now, would have made 340-350 on this wicket, and that is the difference between England and West Indies on the one hand and the top sides in the world on the other.

The game was a textbook example for match track which reveals that the West Indies squandered their position of strength (173/3 in 31 overs) and let England back into the game. In the end, England held their nerve to sneak home by one wicket.

This was the second close game out of 47 in the World Cup so far – the other one also featured Paul Nixon and a spirited English run chase against Sri Lanka – on that occasion England fell 2 runs short of their target. It is not a surprise that the only chance for close games has been when the chasing side has fallen behind the run rate and yet found the target realistically attainable.

How do the rankings look at the end of the Super 8’s? They couldn’t be more exciting. We have yet another epic Australia v SA game to look forward to. New Zealand enter their 4th World Cup semi final, while Sri Lanka feature in their 3rd. The South African’s play their 3rd.

Australia 0.625
South Africa 0.624
New Zealand 0.555
Sri Lanka 0.515
India 0.502
West Indies 0.465
Pakistan 0.452
England 0.450

The number 1 team in the World will feature in the World Cup Final. More on the semi finals later…

New Zealand v West Indies Match Review

New Zealand beat West Indies by 7 wickets to make a winning start to their super 8’s schedule. The West Indies now find themselves behind the clock as far as qualification goes, needing to win atleast three if not all four of their remaining super 8 games.

I wrote in my Match Preview, which finished when the West Indies were 4/86, that they would have to make their stand in the remainder of their batting innings – as it turned out, they did progress to 150/5, when Lara fell and the West Indies collapsed – losing 5/27. With only 177 to defend, it was going to require a Malingaesque effort for the West Indies to take away the all important points. As it happened, without a mystery bowler, and without the relentless pace of yore, New Zealand won with 10 overs to spare. That in itself is significant because the West Indies have conceded 1 full net-run-rate point in this game. Their 100 run defeat against Australia has already hurt their net-run-rate and it is looking increasingly likely that for the 3rd world cup in a row, the hosts may not make the last 4.

The match shows that inspite of the early wickets, (3/77 in 20 overs), a total of 177 meant that it was always going to be a matter of 1 good partnership for New Zealand, and once they got that, it was no contest.
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South Africa v Sri Lanka, Australia v West Indies – Match Review and Match Track….

Two super 8 matches were decided today and the favorites (if there is such a thing in this world cup) came through in both games. The Australians executed a clinical innings in the field and had the game sewn up at early as the 9th over of the West Indies innings when they reduced the West Indies to 3/20. Chris Gayle could not match Mathew Hayden, and the veteran McGrath continued his strong run against the West Indians taking 3/31. Brian Lara had his moments but it was way too many runs for him to chase down by himself. Bradley Hogg – one of the lesser stars in the Australian line up is proving to be their most crucial performer in the World Cup. He brings to the Australian bowling attack that priceless quality – spin bowling which most batsmen in the World don’t read very well. He bowls a superb length and i have rarely if ever seen him get square cut. The Match Track confirms Australia’s dominance…

The Sri Lanka – South Africa game, one which was crucial to the South Africans, ended up being a thriller, all though one was left with the feeling that it was unnecessarily so. In actual fact, it was a game characterized by 2 collapse. Sri Lanka collapsed from 5/195 to 10/209, while the South Africans went from 2/160 to 9/212 – a loss of 7/52. Lasith Malinga took 4 wickets in 4 balls spread over two seperate overs and what was seeming to be a cruise for the South Africans ended up being a heart-stopping quasi-nightmare. The choking bogie has been raised and some uncharitable viewers called this the Chuckers v Chokers game. In reality, the game reinforced the fact that with the magic of Muralitharan and the class of Vaas, Sri Lanka need only one other bowler (Malinga, Maharoof or Fernando) to produce 2-3 wicket taking deliveries in their spells to make them a potent bowling force. Fernando produced a beauty to Tendulkar against India, and Malinga got his yorkers right at the end against South Africa today.

Greame Smith suggested at the end of the game at the South African’s dominated 95 overs of the contest – that turns out not to have quite been the case. The partnership between Dilshan and Arnold had it continued to the 50th over would have given the Sri Lankans 25 extra runs to play with – which might have been crucial. This game, which saw Sri Lanka lose 5/14 and South Africa lose 2 wickets in 2 balls (from Murali) and then 4 wickets in 4 balls (from Malinga) was much closer than the South African captain would have liked.

As it happens, it was a great result for the super 8’s, which now stand as follows:

Australia 4
South Africa 2
Sri Lanka 2
New Zealand 2
West Indies 2
England 0
Bangladesh 0
Ireland 0

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Australia v South Africa, St. Lucia, March 24 – Review and Match Track

In yet another awesome display of Total Cricket, the Australians outplayed the South Africans by 83 runs to achieve a crucial result from the point of view of the World Cup. With Bangladesh and Ireland likely to progress to the Super 8’s, the Group Stage points achieve greater significance, as the pressure on A-list Super 8 games will be greater. Currently, the top 4 teams in my rankings are South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, and these look like being the most likely semi-finalists. South Africa have struggled against the West Indies in multi-lateral tournaments, while England have tended to compete well against the Australians in ODI cricket.

Inspite of South Africa’s position of apparent strength at 160/1 in 20 overs, at the point, they were still required to score at over 7 an over for the next 30 overs at the stage – a huge ask against any opposition, and not surprisingly they fell away. The Australians were relentless and found enough answers to keep the marauding SA batsmen in check.

This was a most interesting game – in that the Australian bowling got hammered and the South Africans were “humiliated” in the field (a favorite word used in almost any context by the Indian press). Some telling trends have emerged in recent months in ODI cricket and these go a long way in explaining what hurt India, where India needs to go, and why it is unlikely that India will get there in the very near future as far as ODI cricket is concerned.

As far as ODI contests go, this was one-sided and the South Africans were never really ahead in the game. The awesome power of Mathew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke was simply too much for the one dimensional South African bowling. In reply, it was Australia’s ability to offer the wrist spin of the underrated Bradley Hogg which made the difference.

The Australians have announced themselves, and it is very likely that the setbacks of the VB Series will fade very quickly into the memory. Ponting said he expect a 350+ run fest in the SA match, and his team have delivered. Australia have now made over 330 in 5 straight ODI games.

The World Cup has moved on – onto Cricket. Away from the madness of murder, militant fans and a distraught subcontinent. It is all for the better in my view….

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India lose by 69 runs…..

The Waugh story didn’t work. One day cricket is a zero sum game. If you don’t win, you lose. Mutthiah Muralitharan said it best when he said – they were the best batting line up on paper in the competition. Its easy to mistake this as a sly condescending hit below the belt – but i doubt whether he meant it that way. India did have the most impressive batting credentials on paper – and those credentials got on to that piece of paper due to performance. Unfortunately, experience, reputation and skill don’t make a batting side immune to batting failures.

253 was 30-40 runs too many, but with India’s bowling line up (one of the weakest on paper in the competition), that is the sort of thing you come to expect, and that is the sort of thing this batting line up has overcome time and again. Yet, two bad batting days later, India have been all but eliminated in the World Cup. Only Dwayne Leverock and his Bermudans can save India now.

This has happened before, and the whole gamut of possible opinions is well documented – its only a game, – it happens sometimes in sport, -the big guns always fails at crunch time, -they make too much money, -its all a mad circus and may be this is a blessing is disguise —— the whole range includes many different tangents and many nuanced versions of these.

The hard fact however is that India’s Plan B world cup squad has not delivered. The Plan A squad consisted of youngsters – a new look young squad ready to take on the World. That worked for a year or so, but once the wickets got tricky in the beginning of the 2006-07 season, India went into a slump and never recovered. The fall back selection (and the selectors there had little choice) did promise much, but as it turns out, has flattered to deceive. It will be a tough job for the selectors now – there have been 2 terrible defeats – and the tricky thing will be to gauge these defeats. Very strong arguments can be made both ways – for large scale changes as well as for retaining the core of the squad (which happens to be about 8-9 players). Greg Chappell’s decision may have a bearing on which way the selectors decide to go. These are still good players – the best players in India. Its one thing to say that Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly should be replaced – its quite another to actually find someone to replace them with. But thats a story for another day.

For now, this result just reinforces to me the immense joy which a victory by Indias cricketers brings. If we are happy enough to take the victories that they deliver, then we ought to be able to deal with the defeats. (And NO – the converse doesn’t hold – they have NO obligation to put up with questions about their professional integrity and assaults on their personal property – for that reason alone, India losing is a GOOD thing).

This is the Match Track for the India – SL game

The simple story is that the opportunistic promotion of the talented Chamara Silva resulted in a counter attacking stand of 83 in 80 balls for Sri Lanka for the 5th wicket – something India couldn’t match. They briefly threatened with Dravid and Sehwag, but it didn’t last.

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New Zealand v England, Match Track and Review

New Zealand beat England by 4 wickets in an interesting game at St. Lucia. On a reasonably good wicket, a low scoring contest ensued, in large part due to England’s spectacular mid innings collapse. They fell about 50-75 runs short, and Michael Vaughan needed almost every single move of his to work perfectly if England were going to defend this score. England have had a poor record defending totals (37% as against 59% chasing) in this decade. This is possibly down to their inability to play a good attacking spinner.

England were unable to get Bond (2/19) away, and only Pietersen crossed 50 for them. They lost Flintoff first ball and from then on it was a question for taking what they could get. They made 71 on 70 for the 8th wicket, which showed just how flat the wicket was. The English opinion about the wicket was apparent in the fields that Michael Vaughan set. It was very interesting – both Anderson and Flintoff went past the outside edge on more than one occasion after McMillan fell, yet Vaughan seemed intent on a short cover instead of a slip. While batting, Vaughan seemed to play too many big shots for a final strike rate of under 50, which is indicative of the control New Zealand exerted early in the English innings. All in all, England seemed to lack fluency in their play.

For New Zealand, it was a par day. They had a red hot phase in the middle of the English innings, and from then on, they knew that the game was in the bag. Match track shows that the 3 early wickets set New Zealand back, but think about this – after losing Vincent, Fleming and Taylor, New Zealand still had McMillan, Oram, Styris, Vettori, McCullum and Franklin – all of whom have proved they can make decisive contributions in with the bat in the last 12 months. That is New Zealand’s great strength. Further, New Zealand are able to play 2 specialist spinners – something which even India and Sri Lanka will struggle to do. This flexibility makes New Zealand a side with the ability to adapt to different conditions very quickly. With Bond’s genuine pace, they have at least three genuine bowling options on any wicket – Bond and two spinners, or Bond and the other seamers.

Pakistan have a similar make up of personnel (and possibly superior batting resources), but they don’t seem to have figured out how to make use of these resources like New Zealand have. All New Zealand need now is 3 good games, and they will have a knock out slot. England on the other hand, like Pakistan have an uphill battle ahead of them.

Bangladesh v India should be not be a traditional minnow contest – basically because Bangladesh have one fast bowler who would make the Indian side – Mashrafe Mortaza and they have a reasonably good batting line up, which is used to playing top opposition. It will be a good test for India and the great opportunity for Bangladesh.

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Rediff’s "Pressure Index" and Match Track…..

Rediff have published a Pressure Index, which attempts to describe the pressure level during a run chase. It is an interesting methodology, as it involves setting the “par” based on “expert opinion”. I did a Match Track of the Rajkot ODI between India and Sri Lanka (the same game that was used for the pressure index). Match Track uses the runs/wicket ratio in order to establish par. It also takes advantage of the fact that an ODI contest is a 600 ball contest from the outset. The result of the match track is shown below:

Match track suggests that India lost this game after the dismissal of Dinesh Karthik. It seems to track the progress of the game faithfully, without the introduction of random “expert” opinion. There was a revival in the Indian run chase after the mid innings slump (where the two worms briefly meet upon Sehwag’ dismissal). If my understanding is correct, the Rediff Pressure index seems to suggest that India were always ahead of the game until the fall of the 7th wicket.

Match Track is also quite easy to read – in that the closeness of a contest can be determined by how close the two worms are, and by how many times the two worms cross each other. The progress of the match is determined in terms of the portion of the 100 overs that have been completed, and in terms of the number of wickets that have fallen. This allows the reader to identify the impact of each individual performance on the contest as a whole. The issue of determining “par’ is further illustrated in the next example:

This is the 4th ODI of that same series, where Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa and Virender Sehwag all scored at better than a run a ball in India’s chase of almost the same score. In this example, if you see the the graphs during the Sri Lanka batting (before 50.00 % progress), then you will find that in the worms show Sri Lanka to be below par, even with their recovery. Thus, the notion of par being established after the game is completed (since this is aimed at a post game analysis any ways) using runs/wicket is illustrated. The best and most complete way of factoring in quality of opposition, playing conditions etc, is the runs/wicket ratio for a match, and that of each side in comparison to it.

I suppose this discussion might seem boring to some readers – but i would appreciate some feedback and i would be happy to clarify any queries about Match Track.

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