New Zealand blindsided as spin takes hold

After removing Sri Lanka for 119 it all looked set for New Zealand to book a semi-final place, but things were a little different in Chittagong's final match of the tournament

When Brendon McCullum skipped towards Rangana Herath and aimed a scything blow down the ground, it carried the intent of a team's star player embossing his mark on the game. What followed certainly set the tone. Unfortunately for New Zealand, it was Herath who turned out to be the match-winner.

Herath had already executed a run-out off his own bowling when McCullum arrived at the crease. New Zealand's captain defended a couple before Herath's fifth delivery went on with the arm to strike the pad, resulting in an excited lbw appeal. The next was tossed up and this time it dipped, gripped and slipped past McCullum's outside edge, leaving him short of his ground. New Zealand had been struck a blow they would not recover from.

In Herath's following over, still having not conceded a run, three consecutive deliveries thudded into Ross Taylor's pad, the last of which no umpire could deny. With a short leg and a slip in place, his next ball insinuated its way through a befuddled Jimmy Neesham and New Zealand were four down, pinned likes flies on a windshield by the dawning realisation that this was the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury pitch, Jim, but not as we know it.

Two tracks have been in rotation in Chittagong, with four matchdays apiece. The pace and bounce had encouraged McCullum to suggest New Zealand, South Africa and England would prefer the conditions, particularly in the evening when dew helped the ball zip on. Sri Lanka were spectacularly burned by England and Alex Hales on Thursday but, after two weeks of competition, the ground suddenly shifted under New Zealand's feet. Their misfortune, perhaps, was to face a must-win game on a worn pitch against the only subcontinental side in the group.

McCullum certainly felt a little blindsided, though he stressed that the better team on the night had won. Winning the toss and then bowling out Sri Lanka for 119 seemed to have given New Zealand a brightly lit path to the semi-finals but the ball held up a lot more than previously, while the absence of dew meant Sri Lanka's spinners were not handicapped in the same way they were against England.

"The wicket was completely different," McCullum said. "We anticipated it to skid on as it has done right throughout every game that has been played here and every team that has won the toss has wanted to chase at night. We expected that to happen but it was really dry, almost a little bit underprepared, the way it played towards the end, and we didn't adapt our games quick enough.

"There were some soft dismissals, poor options, myself included and we couldn't find the balance between being aggressive enough to get us a start chasing a small total, and conserving wickets and trying to stem the flow of their momentum. In the end the team that won and qualified for the semi-finals is a far better team than us."

The groundstaff had been using a spray to try and reduce the effect of dew but this appeared to be the first evening match on which it had any affect. "We found out midway through the game that the outfield was sprayed for anti-dew, which obviously hasn't been done throughout the rest of the tournament, so that was a bit of a surprise as well," McCullum said.

"I think as long as the conditions are consistent throughout, so the teams can get a strategy and an understanding - it's disappointing to see them change so much in one game but we should have been better than that as well. Certainly no sour grapes from our point of view, we certainly should have chased down 120 and only getting halfway is nowhere near good enough."

With Herath barking out time like an army drill instructor, McCullum's side were whirled into oblivion, bowled out for the lowest total by a Full Member side in T20 internationals, despite Kane Williamson making 42 - more than two thirds of their runs. Williamson was New Zealand's leading batsman at the tournament, as more explosive team-mates such as Martin Guptill, Corey Anderson - who did not bat against Sri Lanka after dislocating his finger - and to a lesser extent McCullum failed to fire.

"Batting at No.3 and the role that I've played for us for a period of time, we rely on me to make contributions and running down the wicket and getting stumped for nought trying to create some intensity in that first six overs was not ideal," McCullum said. "At two down, I still thought we were going to chase 120 but I'm disappointed not to make a contribution and to get out like that as well. I still thought we should have chased it... at least got a lot closer."

Defeat revived memories of New Zealand's recent troubles in Bangladesh, where they were whitewashed in ODIs for the second time late last year. They were not among the World T20 favourites, nor were they the side a majority of the crowd came to cheer on. The dreaded presence of the Mexican wave rippling around the stands suggested how easy Sri Lanka had made look what should have been a difficult game.

Having stumbled short of the winning post against South Africa earlier in the group, when they only need seven off the final over with five wickets in hand, McCullum acknowledged that improvements would be required if New Zealand are to produce the desired challenge on home soil at the 2015 World Cup.

"I said right at the outset that we were going to have to play well, right from the start of the tournament. We're not good enough to only play at 80%. There's been some things that irked me throughout the tournament and I'll be addressing those later. But I thought our cricket smarts weren't there, when you're playing on these surfaces that are foreign to what we're used to and the nature of T20, you've got to be very smart and decisive with your decision-making as well.

"You can't afford to be lacking in cricket intelligence. That's what I think we lacked in this tournament and hence we coughed up some opportunities to win games that we should have. Something is going to have to change at some stage, otherwise we'll keep turning up a tournaments, winning a couple, losing a couple and never claiming any silver. That's not what we play for and something's going to have to change if New Zealand's going to start winning major tournaments."

Today's match: India vs Australia

India

   

Australia

                                     WHO IS GOING TO WIN......!

Teams:

India (From): Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Mohammed Shami, Ajinkya Rahane, Mohit Sharma, Varun Aaron, Stuart Binny



Australia (From): David Warner, Aaron Finch, Shane Watson, Glenn Maxwell, George Bailey(c), Brad Hodge, Brad Haddin(w), James Faulkner, Mitchell Starc, Doug Bollinger, James Muirhead, Daniel Christian, Brad Hogg, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Cameron White

Venue:

Mirpur on Mar 30, 2014 from 19:30 Local | 13:30 GMT

          India would take on Australia in the 28th T20 match of the T20 World Cup Schedule tournament. The match will be hosted at Mirpur. Schedule time for T20 match is 19:30 Local Time (13:30 GMT). The match of AUS vs IND is schedule to be played in the month of March 2014. The schedule match between IND vs AUS would be Day/Night and will be played under flood light condition at Mirpur. 

De villiers lead South Africa into Semis

South Africa 196 for 5 (De Villiers 69, Amla 56) beat England (Hales 38, Parnell 3-31) by three runs

AB de Villiers smacked an unbeaten 69 off 28 balls as South Africa beat England by three runs to enter the semi-finals of the World T20

Smart stats

• AB de Villiers reached his 50 off 23 balls, the fastest by a South African in T20Is. The previous record was 24 balls, by Morne van Wyk against India in 2011. The fastest in all T20Is is 12 balls, by Yuvraj Singh.
• The last 14 balls of de Villiers' innings brought him 48 runs; the first 14 fetched 21. Before this match, de Villiers had scored 81 from eight innings against England in T20Is.
• The 54-run partnership between de Villiers and David Miller came off 4.1 overs, South Africa's fourth-fastest partnership of 50 or more runs in T20Is.
• Hashim Amla's 56 is his first half-century in 25 innings in T20Is.
• The opening stand of 90 between Amla and Quinton de Kock is the third-highest by any team in this tournament, and South Africa's fifth-best in all T20Is.
• South Africa's total of 196 for 5 is the highest of this tournament.
• South Africa conceded more than 60 in the Powerplay overs for the second time in successive games in Chittagong: after going for 63 against Netherlands, they leaked 62 in this match, which is the fourth highest in this tournament. The highest is 91 by Netherlands against Ireland.

AB de Villiers returned to South Africa's Twenty20 captaincy in inspirational fashion by producing his country's fastest fifty and assuring his side of a place in the semi-finals of World T20. England were eliminated, foundering in the face of the biggest total of the tournament, their batsmen never really threatening to win it but doing well to take the game so close.

The highest successful chase against South Africa in any T20 was only 169, by New Zealand in East London, the additional 28 runs needed here a powerful indication of England's task. It did not matter how decent the pitch, how much a wet ball hampered the bowlers or skidded past the fielders, this was a demand too far for an England batting side that had already rescued victory against Sri Lanka and could not quite find a repeat.

As for De Villiers, he can rarely have looked more combative. Forced to assume the captaincy because of a one-game ban for Faf du Plessis for over-rate violations, he lost the toss but hardly put a foot wrong after that. His half-century came in 23 balls, in all he made 69 not out from 28, dropped only once, in the final over, when Moeen Ali seemed to lose the ball momentarily in the floodlights.

South Africa, who lost headway in the third quarter of the innings, racked up 55 from the last three overs, with de Villiers' innings increasingly characterised by decisive moves across his stumps and flays through the leg side. Bowlers, stringently punished for too much width, were not blessed with options.

South Africa had not just been disrupted by du Plessis's absence, Wayne Parnell had also been summoned by a Mumbai court with the tournament in full swing to answer drug-related charges occurring during his 2012 IPL campaign. "Unfortunate, but we must respect the law," had been South Africa's measured response, but they will have delighted at how Parnell returned with figures of 3 for 31, and no allegations of artificial stimulation in sight. Alex Hales and Moeen Ali were dismissed in successive balls.

Hales, who had registered England's first T20 hundred in the victory against Sri Lanka, had attacked the huge target with a stately disdain, reaching 38 from 22 balls before slicing to deep cover. By the time that Eoin Morgan fell cutting Imran Tahir, England were sorely in need of a big over. They found it with 17 off an over from Beuran Hendricks, Buttler's straight six beginning to find its range, but his reverse sweep against Tahir fell obligingly to Albie Morkel at backward point.

Tahir's return of 2 for 27 was a masterly display of legspin in defiance of the wet ball. Morkel dislocated a finger in taking the catch and his yelp of pain minutes later as the physio popped it back in the viewing area was not quite drowned out by South Africa's excited anticipation of an impending victory.

England were ahead of South Africa's rate almost throughout their innings, but they lacked for a de Villiers finale. Suitably, their chase was all but lost with the captain's running catch from mid off to dismiss Chris Jordan. Ravi Bopara clipped the rate to 22 off the final over, but the bowler was Steyn, with a fearsome Mohican haircut to boot, Bopara mis-hit his first ball skywards and that was about that.

The match was billed, essentially, as a quarterfinal, although that assessment was slightly insulting to Netherlands as it assumed England would beat them in their final match. As likely as that might be, Netherlands have had their moments in Bangladesh.

For all de Villiers' brilliance, and all the closeness of the result, it was an unsatisfying, disjointed affair, the impetus of the game disturbed by two brief floodlight failures in South Africa's innings and periodic ball changes and outfield drying on another humid, dew-ridden night. The saving grace was that the ball came onto the bat so the cricket, when it happened, was entertaining, but it all took more than four hours to conclude.

England's focus will rest on an accident-prone over from Jade Dernbach, the 18th, which cost 26 and gave South Africa the propulsion they needed. He began badly with two overpitched gifts for David Miller, almost had Miller caught down the leg side by Buttler, bowled a beamer with a wet ball (the ball was immediately changed), delivered three wides, one of which de Villiers made contact with but was wrongly called by umpire Rod Tucker. To round things off, a slower ball was planted out of the ground by de Villiers to bring up his fifty.

South Africa's other innings of note came from Hashim Amla. Extraordinarily, it was his first T20I half-century in his 25th match. For England, who still have memories of his serene Test triple-century at The Oval two years ago, the statistic was impossible to comprehend.

Buttler rued it more than most. There had been over-excitable talk in England that he might even press for a Test wicketkeeping spot this summer if Matt Prior did not rediscover his form of old. For all Buttler's promise, such talk is premature. He missed a simple stumping off Moeen Ali, who drew Amla down the pitch and beat his attempted whip over long on, only for Buttler to fumble the opportunity.

As Amla already had 19 from 12 balls, having flicked Dernbach imperiously over square leg for six, Buttler needed no elucidation on his error, but he got one anyway as Amla repeated the shot, this time perfectly, and plopped the ball into the crowd. By the time Amla swung Stuart Broad to deep midwicket, South Africa's opening stand was worth 90 in 10.5 overs. Buttler gained some recompense by stumping Quinton de Kock.

Duminy's exit was careless; comical even. He hacked Jordan into the leg side where the catch fell short of Ravi Bopara, but Bopara threw swiftly to the keeper's end and Duminy, who had dropped his bat as he evaded Jordan while turning for a second, was a yard short as he dived hopelessly for the crease. De Villiers was at the other end though, and his defining innings had barely begun.

India crush Bangladesh to qualify for semis

On paper, it will be a `David versus Goliath` contest as Bangladesh are no match for an Indian team who are now being considered as serious contenders for the title.

But the fickleness of the shortest format means that a gritty fight from the Tigers can`t be ruled out against some of the biggest names in world cricket. On current form too, there has been a big difference between the two teams as they get ready to lock horns at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.

The Indian team`s confidence has certainly shot up after their wins against quality opposition like Pakistan and defending champions West Indies. In both matches, it was only one team that was in total control and that was Team India.

 For Bangladesh, the campaign has gone haywire since their loss to Hong Kong in Chittagong in the qualifying phase. The batsmen haven`t been able to score runs and the fielding had been awful at times. In such a situation, it becomes all the more difficult for a team to just go ahead and compete.

India board chief on brink after court drubbing

NEW DELHI: India's beleaguered cricket chief N. Srinivasan faced growing calls to resign from within his own ranks Wednesday after the Supreme Court warned that they would otherwise order him to quit. The day after a panel of judges slammed Srinivasan's "nauseating" refusal to resign as cricket board president while allegations of illegal betting and spot-fixing are investigated, commentators said the man regarded as the most powerful in world cricket had suffered a "sledgehammer" blow.
Srinivasan, who takes over in July as head of the International Cricket Council, has yet to make a statement on the judges' comments over investigations into a scandal which involves his son-in-law. But in a sign that his iron grip is dramatically loosening, a vice president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) described Srinivasan's position as "untenable". "Mr Srinivasan's position may have become untenable as the BCCI president following the observations made by the Supreme Court," vice president Ravi Savant said. "He should step down, else the BCCI and Indian cricket will lose credibility."
Another vice president, Shivlal Yadav, also hinted that Srinivasan's days were numbered, saying the BCCI would decide how to proceed once the court issues a firm order, possibly as early as Thursday. "BCCI will wait for the top court's order to decide its future course of action," Yadav, who has already indicated that he is willing to step up, told the NDTV network. During Tuesday's hearing in New Delhi, Justice A.K. Patnaik said there could be "no fair investigation" into the betting scandal while Srinivasan remained at the helm of the board. "If you don't step down, then we will pass an order," added Patnaik, who heads the two-judge panel. The bench is looking at a damning report that it commissioned last year into wrongdoing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) following a betting and spot-fixing scandal that rocked the Twenty20 tournament. Released in February, the report concluded that Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan could be guilty of illegal betting on IPL games.
The report, by a panel headed by retired judge Mukul Mudgal, suggested Meiyappan may have passed on team information to outsiders for illegal betting, but did not specify what information or to whom. "There are no definite findings by the Mudgal committee but the allegations are of a very serious nature," Patnaik told the court. Meiyappan was the team principal of Chennai Super Kings, an IPL franchise owned by Srinivasan's India Cements company and captained by national skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The scandal has generated huge media coverage in the cricket-crazy country, dominating some newspaper frontpages less than a fortnight before a general election. "SC tongue-lashing sets stage for Srini's exit" was the front-page headline of The Times of India, while the Mail Today said Srinivasan had been "given out" by the court.
Several leading cricketers have piled in to demand Srinivasan's resignation, including the World Cup-winning former Test star Mohinder Amarnath who said no one was "bigger than the game" . "He must respect the law and do what the Supreme Court wants him to do," Amarnath told AFP. "He needs to step down."
Sharda Ugra, a senior editor with the influential Cricinfo website, said there appeared no way out for Srinivasan. "His position has been untenable for a while," Ugra told AFP. "The court has come down with a sledgehammer. I am not sure there can be a way out. The BCCI cannot afford to annoy the Supreme Court anymore." The court was due to reconvene on Thursday although it was not clear whether the judges would carry through their threat to impose an order for Srinivasan's resignation then. India is the most powerful country in world cricket due to its vast television audience, which enables the board to generate almost 70 percent of the game's revenues. But the BCCI has often found itself at the centre of controversy, with Srinivasan's predecessor Lalit Modi now living in exile in London as he battles corruption charges.

History of Cricket

    Cricket is one of the oldest games in the world and it continues to thrive today. The game is said to have originated in the 16th century with international matches being played since 1844. There is really no official documentation as to when Cricket started or even where it started. Much of the information that has been piece together has state that Cricket was a game that was thought up in the Saxon or Norman times by children living in the Weal, this is a thick area of woos an clearings in the South East area of England that is across Kent an Sussex.
Cricket started out as a child's game but the adult version of the game was said to have started in the 17th century. Some speculate that Cricket is a take off of a games called Bowls or lawn bowling with the slight variation that a bat is use to keep the ball from reaching the target almost similar to baseball. The basic tools use to play Cricket were thought to be matte lump of sheep's wool to be use as the ball and a stick, crook or farm too was use as the bat.
The very first mention of the games was in a 1598 court case where ownership of a plot of land was being contested in Surrey. An older man ha testified that he and his friends has played a game called creckett on the land over 50 years prior when they attended school there. In 1611, was the first time that an adult had mentioned playing the game rather than attending a church mass. Since then there has been many mentioned of the game in the English Civil War and then after the war ended a new Puritan Government had put a stop to more active sports like Cricket and Football.
Cricket began to grow after the Restoration of 1660 and this is when the game first attracted gamblers to the game. In 1664, the Gaming Act was passed and it put a limit on the stakes of a game to 100 pounds. By the end of the 17th century Cricket was a game that was betted on daily. In the 17th Century, North America was introduced to the game through the English Colonies. By the 18th century it had passed through other parts of the world.

Today, Cricket is still a major sport that still attracts players, spectators and even media interest as well. The ICC or the International Cricket Conference has over time expanded the development of the game and it hopes to produce more national teams that are capable of competing at the Test level. In June of 2001, the ICC has brought the Test Championship Table and in October 2002, the One Day International Championship Table was introduced.
The newest addition to Cricket is the Twenty20, this a style of Cricket that was first seen in England for professional inter county teams and it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board. If you have never seen a game of Cricket, go see one; it really is very fun and exciting....