Hello, here is PART TWO of my World Cup review
While India went about staging their world cup victory on home soil, other teams scrambled to find a means to their own success in the subcontinent. South Africa tried yet again to not suddenly suffer a fatal heart attack and collapse at the finish line, but failed miserably in the quarter-final against New Zealand (the former's worst effort to date and the latter's best as I mentioned a number of posts ago) - possibly my favourite moment of the entire tournament on more than one level; nothing like seeing an entity you despise, fall at the expense of the weakness of one you support. But enough of the quarter-finals for now! Somewhere between the hangover of joy from that match and the strange banality of the final and its somehow manufactured and sickening resemblance to a Disney movie, I forgot to spare a moment for the matches that forced the two finalists (the hosts in fact) together to battle for the trophy.
First came New Zealand's second try at beating Sri Lanka in the tournament and although they failed on the second attempt (the lucky third will no doubt take place in 2015 when the Black Caps will have home advantage) they did not die lamely as they did in 2007 and fought to the end, out gunned, on the empty side of a very imbalanced talent ledger and in foreign conditions. Styris proved his class with a very nice half-century but it wasn't nearly enough - a lack of runs failing to provide the pressure required to really make the opposition sweat. Yet again the effort from the bowlers was impressive and encouraging for the fan looking four years ahead, Southee and Vettori combined to bowl 20-2-93-4 but a third strike bowler was missing (or wickets to McCullum, Styris and Ryder).
There we come to the centre of the problem though don't we? In this match we see the downside of the 'bits & pieces' players - as handy as they can be in odd matches they rarely count in the key matches where the onus is on the top men to perform. This was apparent in both innings as the often quoted line about NZ batting to number ten proved as stupid as it was wishful thinking to begin with; against the triple threat of Malinga, Murali and Mendis there is no tail that bats, only wickets to collect (8 in this case). Next time around it will be up to Taylor, Ryder and McCullum to get the runs (maybe even Guptill and Williamson - we could be so hopeful to have so much batting talent...) and Southee to lead a fierce attack (in accuracy and intelligence if not in pace)
Pakistan can only blame themselves for not being in the final after a disappointing loss to India in the second semifinal. They should have had Tendulkar out for each member of the team by the end of his 85 run innings which proved the difference. They are the most naturally talented team in the world and they always feel the need to play with the handicap of needing to get 22 wickets per game (up to 44 in test matches); they are not quite that good, clearly. Their atrocious feilding (that, I'm afraid to say, forces the eyebrows up the face of even the most naive of viewer) was always going to be a threat to their success in this tournament and sadly, despite an Imran Khan-like effort from Afridi (21 wickets), the old demon could not be overcome - welcome to South Africa's nightmare because that is what this is becoming.
India on the other hand, impressed with another flexible performance. Without their giant first innings lead to smother the opposition, Dhoni had to get the best out of several of his bowlers and in the end all five took two wickets each - a chilling statistic that should have suggested the outcome of the final right then and there
Overall the World Cup was a success for ODI cricket as much as for the BCCI and provided some genuine thrills with the one-sided contests. Ireland's victory over England will long be remembered (not entirely in a happy light as I will get into in the third and final post of this review) and the end of Australia's grip on this tournament can only be seen as a good thing for this form of the game. Unlike in test cricket, this end of an era was brought about by the improvement of several teams as opposed to the decline of the Australian one. If there was one disappointment I would note personally, it would be the weakness of England and the West Indies who left before the semi-finals again. These two teams were the main contenders in the early days of the tournament (1970s) and ODI cricket but in the last 20 years they have been poor, they don't appear to be getting better and worse, they don't appear to want to. England have retained the position of a quality test side that Vaughan built in 2004/2005 but one of these two really needs to step up in ODI cricket to avoid a purely subcontinent dominance - they will get their chance in 2015 in more suitable conditions and I hope they take it
Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again for PART THREE which will look forward to 2015 and beyond in more detail
It's good bye for now
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