ChinmayC Blog

Australia beat the West Indies by 8 wickets and ensuring a better net run-rate ousted South Africa even as the latter beat England, ending their unbeaten streak. In the crucial last match in Group-1 for Australia in Abu Dhabi today, the defending Champions West Indies, for whom the match was of no consequence after being eliminated owing to their loss against the already-ousted Sri Lanka, came out with the right intentions of playing for respect put into bat; but after a few lusty shots by Gayle the same old story unfolded as three wickets fell in quick succession. Chris Gayle, the oldest playing international cricketer at 42 years of age, made only 15 in probably his last appearance in international cricket. A partnership promised to grow between Evin Lewis and Hetmyer, but Lewis getting out for 29 at the team score of 70 ended that. A partnership again seemed to bloom between Pollard and Bravo, but it happened to be only a brief one. Captain Pollard (44), this time, stuck on and help...

England and Pakistan, the unbeaten teams so far in Group-1 and Group-2 respectively, have earned 8 points each with one match each remaining and have sealed their places in the semi-finals. England is probably the best team of the tournament defeating all tough rivals easily and busting the myth that teams winning the toss and bowling first go on to win the matches which, in fact, have been a trend in the sluggish pitches and the dew factor later in the night at Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Dubai. However, England in particular and also Pakistan have proved that any good team can always win under any circumstances. It had been really tough for England to bat first against Sri Lanka, particularly handling the Lankan good spinners; but their in-form batsmen took up the   challenge and Buttler went on to hit the first century of the tournament remaining unbeaten thus helping the team to put up a healthy total of 163 runs. And then, their bowlers and fieldsmen delivered as in all previo...

Cricket in COVID-19 times started in England from the 8 th of July 2020 in empty stadiums and with the strictest of norms and measures. The first 3-Test Series since the outbreak of the pandemic was played against the visiting West Indies. The visitors won the first test by 4 wickets on the fifth and last day of the closely fought encounter. However, the hosts came back stronger in the second and the third test matches, winning the second match by 113 runs and then routing the unpredictable, as ever, West Indies by 269 runs in the concluding match, thus winning the Test Series 2-1. In Test cricket, English seamer Stuart Broad became the 2 nd seam bowler from England, the fourth fast bowler of the world and the seventh bowler overall of the world, to capture 500 wickets in the last encounter that concluded on the 28 th of July 2020. Pity, no home supporters or any other supporters were there to cheer him and the team win! The most promising aspect of the New Normal Cricket was that n...

Photo: espncricinfo.com A new World Champions emerges tomorrow at Lord’s in the ICC Cricket World Cup-2019 Final match to be played between England and New Zealand. Neither England nor NZ ever became Champions before, although both coming close several times. England had been playing semi finals in the first five versions of the World Cup since 1975, and they had been runners-ups three times of those five occasions, never able to win the final. They played a semi final last in 1992 and lost it, never able to make to the last four stage since then.  On the other hand New Zealand played 7 semi finals including the present one and the first two in 1975 and 1979, and had been runners-up only once in the 2015 version when they lost to their big brother Australia. They had been playing good cricket in several world cups, but mostly they had been facing an inconsistent run of wins/losses. In this version they looked the dominant team, but eventually lost badly to Pakistan, Australia and E...

South Africa No.1! If you thought star-ego wars were restricted only to Indian teams—be it in cricket or tennis—you were proved wrong by what happened or rather still happening in England. Interestingly, this gives you another chance to strengthen the synthesis that basically we Indians inherit most of our negative mindsets from our past colonial masters—England! Whatever be the legacy of the once ‘masters’ and once ‘slaves’ both of these countries show the ominous tendency to sacrifice national interests or pride in the rampant inability of their respective sports managers to handle their star players judiciously.  South Africa had just become the No.1 Test team in International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings by toppling England with a 2-0 win in the recent Test cricket series played between the two countries in England. The winning margin of greater than 1-0 came for South Africa after long sixty years. Gary Kristen shines as maybe the first ever coach to take two different tea...

They nearly lost to minnows Netherlands. Chased a target of 339 runs against favorites India successfully--resulting in a tie. They set a target of 328 against minnows Ireland...and LOST! They set a pathetic target of 172 against mighty South Africa...and WON! England is living dangerously and so they could be immensely dangerous to any side--particularly in the knockout stage. If they happen to meet Australia in the quarters I would bet they win! Basically or potentially they are a very strong side and now is fast accumulating the Pakistanish unpredictability! This is a deadly combination. Beware, all team captains! They have nothing to lose, but everything to win the World Cup..once! Meantime the saga of ineffectual matches continue. Barring a few rather debilitating possible upsets by the minnows everybody knows which four top teams of each group go to the quarters. By the time you have all the top teams together it will be over in a whiff. Then why suffer the ordeal! For cricket c...