Tag: Champions Trophy

India Win Champions Trophy

A look back at the Champions trophy final, an account of a pizza making session, a new bird sighting and a regular photo gallery.

The final of the Champions Trophy took place yesterday in Dubai, between India and New Zealand. This post briefly looks back at what happened in that match.

20 RUNS SHORT

New Zealand won the toss and batted first. They started well, with Rachin Ravindra looking in prime form but then lost three wickets in quick succession including Kane Williamson cheaply. I was out for most of the rest of the New Zealand innings after the derailment, arriving back from my morning commitment with the Indian reply under way. New Zealand had finished with a score of 251, respectable, but even on a Dubai surface that is not easy to score quickly on probably 20 runs less than they had needed to make it a really competitive game. Rohit Sharma gave the Indian innings a blazing start, putting them well ahead of the rate. The New Zealand spinners, Santner, Michael Bracewell (at least the fourth of his family after John, Brendan and Doug to play for New Zealand), Phillips and Ravindra all acquitted themselves nobly, Bracewell’s figures in particular being outstanding. The problem was, with Matt Henry out injured the pace element of the attack, O’Rourke, Nathan Smith and the giant Jamieson looked below par, and none distinguished themselves, all proving relatively easy to play on a surface that offered zero encouragement to pacers. Jamieson for all his legendary high release point does not have all that much pace anyway, not even always hitting 80mph. The run chase was tantalizing – every time India seemed away and clear a wicket fell, to just open up the hint of a possibility for New Zealand. In the end the cool head of KL Rahul, assisted in muscular fashion by Hardik Pandya, who fell just before the end, proved decisive. It was another veteran, Ravindra Jadeja who got to hit the winning runs, a four off the final ball of the 49th over, bowled by O’Rourke. India had four wickets in hand, although the fact that Shami was scheduled to come in next suggests that last three of those wickets weren’t worth very much. Rachin Ravindra with 263 runs and 3 wickets across the tournament was Player of the Series, while Rohit Sharma’s 76 (83) won him Player of the Match. Had New Zealand won Michael Bracewell, with 53 not out off 40 balls and 10-1-28-2 would have been Player of the Match for sure. Scorecard here.

PIZZA MAKING

Yesterday morning was an autistic adults Pizza Making event at Pizza Express in King’s Lynn town centre. I was one of the participants…

One starts with a lump of dough and some flour…
…by the time the base is ready to fo into the dish in which it will be cooked it looks like this.
The base in the dish in which it will be cooked. Note the raised edge of the base making form a ‘dish within a dish’, which helps ensure that all the toppings stay where they should.
A smear of tomato sauce starts the topping phase.
The first topping I accepted was black olives.
I also accepted mushrooms, once dubbed ‘food of the gods’ by Nero, a “joke” about how his predecessor Claudius had become a god.
The only other topping I chose to have was pepperoni.
Second to last comes the cheese which will bind everything together, and which should be distributed as evenly as possible.
The last addition, to complete the pizza is oregano, which serves bring out the full flavour of the other ingredients. Then it is a matter of waiting for it to be cooked.
The cooked and ready to eat pizza. I can confirm that it tasted at least as good as it looks.

GOOSANDER PAIR IN KING’S LYNN

I have a new bird sighting to report. This morning, between the Nar Outfall and the path through Hardings Pits I spotted what a combination of my bird book and mastodon (where I posted a photograph with my identification and got a positive response). Here is a screenshot of the mastodon exchange…

Here are all my photos of the pair of Goosanders (and a reminder – to view a photo at larger size just click on it(…

PHOTOGRAPHS

To end this post here is the rest of my photo gallery…

New Zealand off to a Strong Start

A look at early developments in the second semi-final of the Champions trophy, a link (teslatakedown.co.uk). and a large photo gallery.

The second semi-final of the Champions Trophy is underway. Work commitments meant that I did not catch a single ball of yesterday’s match between Australia and India. India won, which means that the final of the tournament will take place outside the official host nation, and on the worst pitch on show at this tournament, the paceless strip of rubbish that Dubai has served up. This post looks at the early stages of the match between New Zealand and South Africa.

RUNS FLOWING

New Zealand won the toss and chose to bat. The pitch at Lahore looks very flat, with even the towering Marco Jansen struggling to generate bounce. Will Young has been the only casualty so far, for a 23 ball 21. Rachin Ravindra has reached an excellent 50, taking 47 balls to get there. He has added ten further runs of another eight deliveries since reaching the landmark. Kane Williamson is currently on 27 from 36 balls, and New Zealand are 111-1 from 19 overs.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Before the photographs I have a link to share. I mentioned in an earlier post that I will be taking part in a protest at the Tesla dealership near Park Royal station on the Piccadilly line, and there is now a website for people interested in hitting Musk in the pocket, teslatakedown.co.uk. Now for my usual sign off….

Bin-gland

A look at the state of the England Men’s ODI team. Also a large photo gallery.

England’s participation in the Champions Trophy is at an end, and they have been the worst team at the tournament, being the only side in either group not to record a single point. This post looks briefly at yesterday’s match and then at the problems with this England Men’s ODI side.

EXITING WITH A WHIMPER

England’s elimination was already confirmed before yesterday’s match began, but the question was whether they would depart with a bang or a whimper. Afghanistan were hoping for it to be an almighty bang, since a victory by 207 or more runs would push South Africa’s net run rate below Afghanistan and mean that the latter made the semi-finals. In the event England exited with the tamest of whimpers. The match started in familiar fashion, with Phil Salt (no 1 in the England batting order) and Jamie Smith (no 3) both departing cheaply, both to terrible shots. That once again brought Duckett and Root together with a rebuilding operation to perform. This time round we got an illustration of the fact that if you keep on needing rescue operations you don’t always get them – Duckett made 24 and Root 37, which would remain England’s top score. Brook, officially next in line for the captaincy vacated by Buttler, managed 19. Buttler, attempting to provide some stability, a role for which he is not well suited, managed 21 off 43 balls, while Jofra Archer ended up second top scorer with 25 off 31 balls, and the comparative ease with which he was able to bat was a damning indictment of his alleged betters in that department. All of this added up to 179 all out from 38.2 overs – a scoring rate of below five an over and 11.4 overs left unused. Marco Jansen took 3-39, and was outdone figures wise by Wiaan Mulder who had 3-25. No South African bowled badly, with Kagiso Rabada’s 1-42 from seven overs being the worst figures of any of their five bowlers. Rassie van der Dussen, 72 not out off 87 balls, and Henrich Klaasen, 64 off 56 balls before perishing in the moment of victory were the chief performers responsible for making England’s total look as pathetic as it was, South Africa winning by seven wickets with 20.5 overs to spare – in other words they had more than the length of a T20 innings to spare.

ENGLAND’S PROBLEMS

England personnel wise (for the moment we will ignore questions of the domestic schedule) have four main issues, of which only the first is definitely being dealt with:

  1. They have the wrong captain. Buttler has stepped down, which starts to address this, but my own feeling is that they need to do something more radical than merely turn to ‘next cab in the rank’ Brook. Perhaps Liam Dawson, who playing skills would help to address other problems could be brought straight in as captain.
  2. Numbers one and three in the order need replacing. You cannot expect to win matches when losing two early wickets on an absolutely regular basis, and the dismissals of Salt and Smith against South Africa suggest that neither learned anything from their failures in the first two matches.
  3. Lack of all rounders. This, with five bowlers required to be used in every innings, creates issues of balance – you either pick five proper bowlers, relying on the top six to do the bulk of the scoring, or you pick four front line bowlers only and rely on part timers to bowl the fifth allocation of ten overs. England have opted for the latter approach, and their lack of either depth or variety in the bowling department has cost them at this tournament, which leads to…
  4. Too much similarity in bowling. England have not a left armer of any type at this tournament (look up the bowling half of the package offered by Dawson the player), the fast bowlers used have all been very similar, making it easy for opposing batters to take them on. The one trustworthy component of the England bowling attack at this tournament, Adil Rashid, is now 37 years old, and the endurance of James Anderson notwithstanding probably has a fairly limited remaining shelf life at the top level.

England have not been struggling in ODIs for nearly as long as they had been when they crashed out of the 2015 World Cup, but a reset of a similar type to the one that took place then is required.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off (with a reminder as we start a new month that images can be viewed at a larger size by clicking on them)…

Rain Reduces Afghanistan Qualification Hopes

A look at developments in the Champions Trophy, and at the battle for qualification between Afghanistan and South Africa (Australia are through after today, and England were confirmed as out two days ago). Also a photo gallery.

Yesterday’s match between Pakistan and Bangladesh at the Champions Trophy was washed out without a ball bowled, meaning the only team in the tournament without a point are now England. Today saw Afghanistan and Australia face off in Lahore in a match that would see the winners progress and the losers eliminated, unless rain struck again…

THE AFGHANISTAN INNINGS

Afghanistan were saved from disaster by two contrasting innings. Sediqullah Atal held the early part of the innings together with a solid 85 (95), before Azmatullah Omarzai produced another impressive performance, scoring 67 off 63 balls. Afghanistan were all out off the last ball of their innings, for 273. Ben Dwarshuis with 3-47 from nine overs was Australia’s top wicket taker, while Spencer Johnson with 2-49 from his full 10 was the economical. Rashid Khan would have noted rival leg spinner Adam Zampa finishing with 2-48 from eight overs.

THE AUSTRALIAN REPLY

Australia started like a bullet from a gun, helped by some poor bowling and worse fielding from Afghanistan (three ‘dolly’ catches went begging). However, with Australia 109-1 after just 12.5 overs, Head 59* (40), Smith 19* (22), the heavens opened in almost Noachian fashion. The field at the Qaddafi Stadium soon resembled a lake, and although the rain eventually stopped, the ground remained sodden. There was an inspection at 8:45PM local time (3:45PM UK time), but that was merely to officially confirm that there was no way the game could resume on time even for the 7.1 overs that Afghanistan would have had to bowl for there to be an official result to happen. This means that Australia have four points and are qualified, Afghanistan have three points and need England to absolutely thrash South Africa in the sole remaining fixture in this group for the Proteas net run rate to drop below theirs (if England bat first and the game is a full 50 over per side affair England would need to win by 207 runs or more for Afghanistan to qualify, while if South Africa bat first then effectively Afghanistan’s fate is sealed, since the least unrealistic scenario involving an England chase is if South Africa are all out for 125, when England would then need to knock the runs off in 12 overs or less to get Afghanistan through. This match has been confirmed in the course of today as Buttler’s last as England white ball skipper (officially he has resigned the role, which I suspect means he just beat England management to the punch – there was no way after a third straight elimination at the first stage of a tournament that has captaincy remained tenable). The likely semi-finalists at this tournament are, in alphabetical order: Australia, India, New Zealand and South Africa. As to who England’s new white ball captain will be (or if that will remain the split – India have Rohit Sharma captaining the test and ODI teams and Suryakumar Yadav captaining the T20 side, reflective of the fact that actually for all that the latter two are played with the same colour ball the difference between ODIs and T20s is much greater than that between tests and ODIs) I am unsure. The conventional choice would be Harry Brook, but it has been known for sides in real trouble, as England are now, to opt to really draw a line under the past by bringing in a brand new captain from outside the squad.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

This picture and the next show the remains of the bus stop sign at the stop from which i catch the bus to work…
…I am not quite sure how it got totalled, but whatever caused it must have been quite a sight.
This is a remotely operated machine for cutting down undergrowth.
Beyond that fencing is the railway line. I am not quite sure what induced a cormorant to make this particular small stretch of the Gaywood its home, but I have seen it there several times now.

England’s Champions Trophy Hopes Hang by a Thread

England are currently playing Afghanistan in a match in which the defeated side definitely goes out of the tournament. Each side will have one match left. If England win they will then need to beat South Africa to qualify, while if Afghanistan emerge victorious they will need to beat Australia to qualify. In the event of the winner of today’s match losing their final game Australia and South Africa (whose match yesterday was rained out without a ball being bowled) would both qualify. This post looks at developments in today’s match so far.

AFGHANISTAN’S INNINGS

Afghanistan won the toss and chose to bat first. The injured Brydon Carse was replaced in the England line up by Jamie Overton. The match started well for England, with Afghanistan being 39-3 at one point. However, a combination of an injury to Mark Wood, Jos Buttler’s stubborn refusal to recognize until far too late that Wood couldn’t bowl his full allocation, the questionable balance of the England line up, reliant as it is on Livingstone and Root to bowl the fifth allocation of ten overs, and a magnificent innings by Ibrahim Zadran created a dramatic turnaround in events. Zadran had three principal assistants from his own side in addition to Wood’s injury and Buttler’s bad captaincy. The revival began with Zadran and Hashmatullah Shahidi putting on 103 for the fourth wicket in 19.4 overs, the latter contributing a solid 40. Revival began to become genuine counter attack with the next partnership, with Azmatullah Omarzai which yielded 72 in 10.3 overs, Omarzai scoring 41 off 31 balls. Then came the truly explosive partnership, 40 year old Mohammad Nabi exactly matching his age years in runs off his own bat, from just 24 balls, while Zadran now utterly dominant turned what was already a very high class innings into one of unquestioned greatness. His previous best ODI score was 162, and he passed both that and Ben Duckett’s Champions Trophy record set just a few days ago of 165 with a single blow that took him from 160 to 166. By the time he fell, in the final over of the innings, bowled due to a combination of the injury and Buttler’s mismanagement of his bowlers by Liam Livingstone, he had scored 177 off 146 balls with 12 fours and six sixes the score had reached 323, the sixth wicket stand worth 111 in 9.1 overs, which included 20 off one Archer over and 23 in the 47th over of the innings, bowled by Root, who when Wood’s departure from the field finally forced Buttler to extend the allocation he gave his fifth bowler duo. During the middle overs Livingstone and Root had bowled a combined 10-0-50-0, but neither are remotely suited to bowling at the death, and the danger of Wood not being able to bowl his full ten overs was blatantly apparent from quite early in the innings. A couple of balls after Zadran’s dismissal Nabi was also out to make to 324-7. A further single accrued to end the innings at 325-7. Livingstone, given the 50th over of the innings in desperation had final figures of 5-0-28-2, the sole England bowled to go at under a run a ball.

THE ENGLAND RESPONSE

Salt went for 12 early on in the reply, bowled by Omarzai’s medium pace. Jamie Smith charged at Nabi’s first ball of the innings and was caught by Omarzai for 9 to make it 30-2. Duckett and Root put on 68 together before Rashid Khan trapped Duckett LBW for 38 to make it 98-3. Brook looked reasonable impressive, but got himself out with the job barely started, hitting one straight back to Omarzai for 25 off 21 balls. That was 133-4 (these last two wickets have fallen while I have been working on this post, making the thread of the title more than a little frayed) with Buttler coming in to join Root. The advocates of immense batting firepower will point out that England still have Livingstone to come, and that Jamie Overton is not the worst number eight. To this I respond that if England had a better bowling line up Afghanistan may well not have been able to fight back from the depths of 37-3. For my money this match is as good as over already. If this proves correct I hope that the first decision England make in the aftermath of this tournament is to axe Buttler as captain. They also need to realize sharpish that four proper bowlers backed up by Livingstone and Root is not good enough. England with the Livingstone/ Root combination have statistically the worst fifth bowling option of any of the eight sides at this tournament.

TWO FINGERS TO ELON THE EXECRABLE

There is a Tesla dealership practically next door to Park Royal station (Piccadilly line), and on March the 8th at 11AM there will a protest there directed at Elon Musk. Click here to sign up.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The rainbow that features in this shot and the next seven appeared at about 4:30PM on Monday.
Yesterday was bright and sunny, and the first insects of 2025 were in evidence.
A combination of the weather and the fact that the bus was obviously going to be taking a fair while to get clear of the hospital grounds led me to a decision to alight early on my way home from work.

Australia v England

A look at yesterday’s Champions Trophy match between Australia and England. Also a photo gallery.

Yesterday the Champions Trophy saw Australia take on England. This post looks at what has been thus far the match of the tournament (and today’s match, between another pair of fierce rivals, India and Pakistan is not looking like rivalling it right now).

THE ENGLAND INNINGS

Phil Salt and Jamie Smith were both out fairly early for England, but then Ben Duckett and Joe Root had a splendid partnership for the third wicket. There were stages when a total not far short of 400 looked possible. Duckett, often fairly criticized for not being willing to give himself time to get settled in, played an absolute blinder of an innings. Even in ‘restrained’ ODI mode he scored rapidly, eventually falling late on in the innings for 165 off 143 balls. Buttler got himself out in the 43rd over, and in the end England amassed 351-8. Even on a good pitch and a fast outfield that looked fairly impressive…

THE AUSTRALIAN CHASE

At one stage Australia were 136-4, and it looked like England were in control, though they had gone batting heavy – the fifth bowling allocation was in the hands of Livingstone and Root. In the event it was the three specialist pacers, Archer, Carse and Wood who proved shockingly expensive. Buttler demonstrated again what a poor captain he is, giving Root and Livingstone just one over more than the minimum he needed from them, though they were faring less badly than the quicks. The sole England bowler to fare really well was 37 year old Adil Rashid who recorded 10-1-47-1. The Australian comeback began with Inglis and Carey putting on 146 for the fifth wicket in 19.2 overs. The last ball of the 38th over was the moment the match swung decisively – Archer dropped a very easy chance offered by Carey, which would have had Australia 248-5, needing 104 off the last 12 overs with only five wickets left. By the time Carey was dismissed, the ask was down to 70 off 8.2 overs, not normally considered difficult these days, and Australia made it look very easy in the end. There were 2.3 overs to go when Inglis finished it in style with a six, the sixth of his innings. Inglis had 120* from 86 balls. The three fast bowlers had combined figures of 26.3-0-226-3, an average of 75.33, a strike rate of a wicket every 53 balls and an economy rate of 8.53. Livingstone and Root had 11-0-73-1, an average of 73.00, a striker rate of a wicket every 66 balls and an economy rate of 6.64 per over – below the required rate, and 1.89 runs per over less than the quicks went at. England now need to win both their remaining games, the first of which is against Afghanistan.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

There are rarely as many as four trains visible at King’s Lynn station.

The ICC Champions Trophy So Far

A look at the early stages of the Champions Trophy, currently taking place in Pakistan. Also a large and varied photo gallery.

The 2025 ICC Champions Trophy got underway on Wednesday. This tournament features the top eight sides in the ICC world rankings, which at present means there are several countries missing who might be expected to be there – none of Sri Lanka, West Indies or Zimbabwe made the cut for example. The format of the tournament (round one seeing the eight split into two groups of four, with the top two from each group moving into the semi-finals) means that even early on teams can find themselves in serious jeopardy.

THE MATCHES SO FAR

Today’s match, between Afghanistan and South Africa, was the third of the tournament, with the only two teams yet to see action being Australia and England who play each other tomorrow. The tournament is officially being staged in Pakistan, but India’s matches are taking place in the UAE as they refuse to travel to Pakistan, and their power in the cricket world is such that they get away with this sort of behaviour whenever they choose to indulge in it.

The tournament opened with Pakistan hosting New Zealand in Karachi. New Zealand batted first and compiled 320, which looked substantial, and was soon made to look even more so by a combination of good New Zealand bowling and some poor batting from Pakistan. Babar Azam scored 60, but took 93 balls to get there, which when your side has been set to score at 6.4 per over is simply not acceptable. Of the first 141 balls of the Pakistan innings exactly 100 were dot balls.

I did not catch any of the game between Bangladesh and India yesterday due to work. I gather that India won comfortably, though not as comfortably as they might – Rohit Sharma dropped an easy chance which would have given Axar Patel a hat trick, the first ever in the Champions Trophy, and the reprieved batter than took part in a huge partnership which gave Bangladesh something to attempt to defend.

Today’s match had strong echoes of Pakistan v New Zealand. South Africa won the toss and batted first, and with Ryan Rickelton scoring a fine century, Bavuma helping to set a platform for them with 58 and then van der Dussen and Markram scoring quicker 50s later on the in the innings (each made 52, off respectively 46 and 36 balls) South Africa emerged with 315-6 from their 50 overs, which looked more than enough. Probably the most disappointed of the Afghans would have been Rashid Khan whose figures of 10-0-59-0 continue a very poor showing in ODI tournament matches (he now has 17 wickets in 19 such matches at an average of over 50 a piece, though his economy rate is acceptable, largely because he is so good that opposition sides will happily settle for blanking his wickets column. Noor Ahmad, the young left arm wrist spinner, was frankly poor, recording 9-0-65-1. In reply Afghanistan never got into the hunt. Rahmat Shah played a fine knock but found no significant support. Other than his 90, the next highest scores were 18s from Azmatullah Omarzai and Rashid Khan. When Shah was last out, nicking one from Rabada through to Rickelton South Africa had won by 107 runs, a result which has probably already confirmed that Afghanistan will be making an early exit from the tournament. Rickelton’s century and solid keeping performance (two catches taken, only two byes let through) earned him the Player of the Match award, though Rabada’s 3-36, with Azmatullah Omarzai the least regarded batter of the trio, must have come into the reckoning.

LOOKING AHEAD

Australia are in a weakened state – tomorrow will be the first time in nine years that they take the field without any of Cummins, Hazlewood or Starc, and so makeshift is their squad that they are captained by the sandpaper tarnished Steve Smith. England have been in poor form, and much will come down to how they approach their batting. New Zealand and South Africa have played it right, building a base and then upping the tempo in the later stages. Pakistan were far too conservative in the first half of their chase against New Zealand, dropping irretrievably behind the required rate. England have a tendency to treat 50 over innings as extended versions of 20 over innings, which is how they might well come a cropper. The extra length of the innings means that there are times when consolidation is necessary – though not to the extreme of allowing 100 of the first 141 balls of your team’s innings to be dots!

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The first of the spring flowers are emerging, and it has been warm enough yesterday and today to venture out without a coat.
A juxtaposition of two stamps each of which depict the world’s first Steam Lcomotive, Trevithick’s Pen-y-Darren, which first ran in 1804.