Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Bad grouping of teams evident from the quarter final line up

Well keeping in mind the quarter finals of the world cup, this just seems to be a mismatch with Pakistan not only having an upper hand against the Caribbean but also the West Indies might never ever be able to regroup once the quarter finals against Pakistan be over in the next 8 hours to come. Also the other side would be Sri Lanka who are scheduled to face England on Saturday. No doubt that both these teams would enter with minimum or no effort into the semi-finals of the world cup. But, is this right on the part of the ICC is a million dollar question.

There is no particular team like the Aussies in the past two world cups to have a birthright on the world cup. And neither have Bangladesh and Zimbabwe been underdogs as they have been expected. But, if things are given a close look at, it looks that group A is gifted with weaker teams compared to group B. Group A has two teams from the sub-continent namely Sri Lanka and Pakistan who always have an upper hand being the hosts and enjoying home like conditions. I all blame it on Australia to have deceived the ICC who came out with such grouping of teams.

In group B, only India is a team worth having anyone's bet into. Though South Africa have emerged on the top of the table, it was India who gifted them with a victory by losing 9 wickets for 28 runs with all odds predicting a 350+ total at the end of the Indian innings. Added to that, there were mismatches in England's games against Ireland and Bangladesh which reduced England's chances that in turn favored South Africa to end as the top team. Had England won against Ireland and Bangladesh, they would have been on the top and not the Proteas.

Teams like Zimbabwe, Kenya, Canada and Holland never made their presence felt. However, Ireland and Bangladesh did. Both Ireland and Bangladesh were far superior compared to Kenya, Canada and Zimbabwe in group A. One has to take a deeper look to Explore reality. West Indies on the other hand proved a 2nd chance for teams like England and India. In group A, All four teams played to their potential with minnows aside. Pakistan beat Australia which in turn beat New Zealand. If I was in place of Lorgat, I'd have put Australia in group B and South Africa in group B and Bangladesh in group A while Zimbabwe would have been in group B.

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