Today saw two matches at the ODI Cricket World Cup, both of which in their own ways were excellent news for the tournament and for the sport as a whole. These are described in today’s post. Yesterday’s game between Pakistan and South Africa turned into an absolute nail biter, South Africa sneaking home by one wicket, and then came today’s events.
THE TRANS-TASMAN DERBY
Australia got away to an absolute flyer, with the scoring rate almost 12 an over for the first ten overs. However once David Warner and Travis Head were out in quick succession the innings lost momentum for a period. In the end it took a late flurry by Pat Cummins to boost the final total to 388-7. New Zealand also started fast with the bat, and were never wholly out of contention at any stage of the chase. In the end 19 were needed off the final over, and Mitchell Starc, who had a shocking match, had to bowl it. When Jimmy Neesham was run out coming back for a desperate second on the penultimate ball it meant that injured number 11 Lockie Ferguson had to attempt to score six off the one remaining delivery to pull off an epic chase. In the event the delivery was a dot ball and Australia had won by five runs. The aggregate of 771 was a new record for any World Cup match, beating the 754 between South Africa and Sri Lanka (428 plays 326) earlier in this tournament.
BANGLADESH v NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands batted first and managed to tally 229, being out to the last ball of their 50 overs. It was then that the fun started. In spite of the fact that conditions at Eden Gardens, Kolkata are rather closer to those experienced by Bangladesh on a regular basis than those best known to the Dutch it was the latter who made better use of them. Bangladesh were soon 63-4, then 69-5, then 74-6. A seventh wicket stand of 34 offered temporary reprieve. When the vastly experienced Mahmudullah was eighth out for 20, leaving numbers 9,10 and 11 in the order to score in excess of 100 at over six an over the writing was firmly on the wall, and although the tail enders showed rather more grit than most of their supposed betters with the bat the final margin was 87 runs, a second victory of the tournament for the Netherlands, and a result which condemned England, whose next outing is against hosts India tomorrow, to bottom place in the table, behind Bangladesh on net run rate. The single most damning aspect of a dismal performance by a team who have had test status for over 20 years and signally failed to make full use of being at cricket’s top table was the fact that even in the spin bowling department, always their greatest strength, Bangladesh were outdone by their opponents. Aryan Dutt for the Netherlands was allowed to record figures of 1-26 from his ten overs, while second spinner Colin Ackermann, primarily a batter, emerged with 7-1-25-1. The Dutch are to be congratulated, and I for one will be far from surprised should they add to their two wins in what is left of the group stage.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
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