When good performance would be pointless

Well this is regarding the only one day international match between Ireland and Australia which was played yesterday at Dublin. And, needless to be said, Australia did win as expected despite putting a modest of all totals when they lost 9 wickets for a score of just 231 runs on the board. The reasons for the same might be many like, Australia were playing a game away from home though they were facing Ireland who are yet to attain some dignity in international cricket. On the otherhand, Ireland were playing a game under conditions similar to their home nation which is just hundreds of miles away.

However, Australia did win the game though not convincingly when the margin of victory was just 39 runs which is way behind Australia's success in terms of number of runs scored against any strong nation say Pakistan and West Indies offlate. The other reason for Australia to put up such a under rated performance against the Irish would be that they might have underestimated the opposition for which most of the teams have paid the price. And, last but not the least, the match under discussion is totally inconsequential and the performance of Australia does not matter to any extent.

Of course, had Australia lost the match, that would have surely made headlines. But, a win will never ever make one. I bet that hardly anybody would be aware that there was a match held between Australia and Ireland yesterday at Dublin. Australia has got nothing to lose in case they get away with a marginless win for they are not involved in any triangular series to worry about a bonus point nor are they going to face any big opposition for them to carry forward some confidence with this game. But, still, one has to imagine why Australia went into the match with a full fledged team involving Ponting, Watson, Clarke and Bollinger?

In terms of the number of extras conceded, Ireland has an upperhand when the Irish bowlers conceded just 13 of them and with the leg byes and byes being excluded from the list, the number drops down to just 7 as against the 17 extras that included 14 of them in the form of wides and no balls bowled by Australia. This might not mean that the Irish bowlers were more accurate in their bowling as compared to Australia for, the experimenting factor comes into the picture at which the Aussies rank number one in the world. When there is no experimenting, there is little scope for errors but more scope for stagnation.

Kiwis delay the inevitable

If the way the New Zealand team played on the 3^rd day against Australia was taken, it was as though the New Zealand team would end their second innings well before the end of the 4^th day itself when, in addition to losing the remaining 6 wickets in the first innings, they lost another 5 wickets in their second innings as well. This no doubt gave hints of a New Zealand batting collapse even before the 4^th day of the test match ended. However, this was no to be when the Kiwis, unlike in the first innings didn't lose more than 1 wicket with their scorecard at the end of the day's play reading 369/6.

The score at the end of the third day's play read 187 runs for the loss of 5 wickets, meaning the New Zealand batsmen could score an additional score of 182 runs in the process losing just 1 wicket which was that of their captain Daniel Vettori and not before he scored a solid 77 runs which also involved a 126 run partnership along with Brendon McCullum who was unbeaten on 94 at the end of the day's play. If any team is given a first glance, the very first thing that would be noticed would be the captain and the wicketkeeper and the same captain and the wicketkeeper doing a fab job for his team is a rare feat for any team.

It was their captain Daniel Vettori and the wicket keeper Brendon McCullum who were in an attempt to save some face for the New Zealand team, which would have otherwise seen their team losing the match by an innings on the fourth day itself. Even Bangladesh who are facing England on the other side of the globe are considered, the match is not found to finish before the 5^th day commences. But, New Zealand evoked fears among the fans by losing 11 wickets on the third day's play. However, it was good that the duo settled the issue for the New Zealand.

Any team barring Bangladesh and West Indies (off late) have to rethink about their position in test cricket in case they lose a home series and more so in case the defeat is by an innings. Now that the Kiwis have avoided the innings, atleast some consideration though they are bound to lose the match. But still, a better performance was expected from the Kiwis with the likes of Vettori and Guptill who have a great potential to turn around things for their team. When they could do it in the second innings, there can be hardly any reasons that can be guessed for them not being able to do the same in the first innings.

Australia wants more from Ponting

Well after Australia's loss to New Zealand at Napier a couple of days back, tongues have to wag for the losing team. This happens to be either some lame excuses which form the reason for losing or the strength that the opposition is aided with that inversely hit them. However, Ricky Ponting comes out asking more from the Aussie batsmen when scoreboard suggests that the Aussie batsmen have done enough to see their team through the match which unfortunately didn't happen at Napier. It was just a matter of time that Australia get back to their winning ways which can be proved in the next 4 ODIs that follow.

This was more or less Dhoni's words when he comes out blaming the batsmen for India's loss in the finals of the tri nation tournament featuring Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India a couple of months back. However, though the batsmen should have put up atleast a score of 300 on the board, Ponting's words are not completely justified whatsoever. Every Australian batsman put up a score in excess of 10 runs which is not guaranteed in case of a touring team that loses. Australia had a depth in batting upto number 9 until Mitchell Johnson who can prove something with the bat.

Ricky Ponting justifies his words citing the team total which was at one stage 50/1 at the end of the 6^th over with the run rate above 8.0 an over, without realizing the advantage of the powerplay that the batsmen were enjoying. Even a run rate of over 10 an over at that stage should not raise eye brows. And, how can one extrapolate the final match score with just 6 overs been bowled? If this is the way calculation can go on, a match should yield a total in excess of a thousand incase the 1^st over goes for 20 runs and the same is expected to happen for the remaining 49 overs.

Meanwhile, Ponting should take a look at his own captaincy when the way he used his bowlers is given a close look at. Despite going in for over 6 an over, Bollinger is given to bowl his entire quota of 10 overs. One has to wonder as to what on earth made Ponting go in for full pace attack leaving little room for the spinners to cash in. Ponting had spinners like Michael Clarke and Nathan Hauritz who bowled just 5 overs. Despite decades of experience, Ponting was found forgetting the fact that the batsmen from New Zealand are bad players of spin bowling. The Aussie bowling was found to oscillate between medium pace and fast bowling.

Whatever, despite all these mishaps from Ponting, he must consider himself lucky enough for coming close to winning and not losing in a one sided manner.