What we have learned so far in this World Cup
Andy Zaltzman17-Feb-20151. The Associate nations are not so bad at cricket that they must at all costs be marginalised from future tournaments
Surprising evidence has emerged in the opening days of the tournament that the Associate nations might not be completely and utterly without quality, merit or purpose. The non-Test nations were previously considered so abjectly hopeless at one-day cricket that the size of the sport’s global showpiece simply had to be restricted by 29%, from 14 teams to ten – coincidentally the exact number of teams with Test status, with just two spots available via a qualification competition.Ireland comprehensively defeated West Indies, whilst Scotland, not even listed on the official ICC rankings, which only delve down as far as No. 12, prompted a few flutterings of anxiety in a New Zealand team which had itself clobbered Sri Lanka (currently world No. 4) in the opening match.In mitigation, it must be pointed out that Ireland had not won a World Cup match for four long, long years, and, whilst there may be some documentary evidence, peddled on rumour-mongering sites such as ESPNcricinfo and the ICC’s own web realm, suggesting that Ireland may have beaten England in a spectacular 328-run chase in 2011, and/or beaten Pakistan and Bangladesh four years previously, these claims have never been proven in a court of law.Thus far, the so-called “lesser” ODI nations have performed with great credit – even England put up some resistance in the final overs of their first match. The current format might be significantly flawed, but if a ten-team version is what the doctor ordered to maximise the quality and drama of cricket’s World Cup, then you should (a) seek a second opinion, (b) check the certificates on that doctor’s wall, they may well be bogus, (c) do not swallow anything that doctor gives you.
Eoin Morgan’s 24-minute blob was the equal fifth-longest World Cup duck in terms of minutes at the wicket, and the longest ever in the second innings of a World Cup match
2. Not every five-for is a cause for euphoria
I will be brutally honest with you, readers – I have never taken a five-wicket haul in front of 85,000 people in a major global cricketing showpiece. I have never, in fact, taken a five-wicket haul in an international cricket match. Nor have I taken a five-wicket haul in a non-international List A one-dayer. Or, indeed, in any other cricket match. (Excluding, I would like to point out, games in the garden against my younger sister. She was approximately five years old at the time, hated cricket, but could generally be relied upon to stand holding a bat by some over-sized stumps for at least ten minutes before running inside and bleating to mother using words like “boring”, “unfair” and “I never want to do that again”, giving me, the 10-year-old bowler, ample time to pick up some average-lowering scalps.) I did once bowl a tidy spell of 3 for 60 in just 11 overs in a Sunday village match, a glorious display of raw slow-medium-slow pace that remains my bowling career highlight. If I had taken five wickets for England at the MCG in the World Cup opening match, I would have done a number of things, including:1. Run around like an idiot, jumping up and down, and shouting, “Yes, yes, what a time to take a five-for.”
2. Thank Eoin Morgan for letting me bowl, and commiserated with him on the injuries suffered by all the other ten players in the team during the course of the innings.
3. Gesture towards the press box to silence all those who had questioned my controversial selection for a World Cup opener ahead of several arguably more professional cricketers.
4. Eventually wake up.When Steven Finn completed the first five-wicket haul by an England bowler in an ODI at the MCG (and the first by an Englishman there in any format since Dean Headley’s match winning 6 for 60 a whole millennium ago (in the 1998-99 Boxing Day Test), he was, justifiably, less exuberant.England’s slender World Cup hopes are almost entirely dependent on wickets from their potent-looking seam attack. Stuart Broad taking two in two relatively early in the match, and a hopefully-resurgent Finn bagging five, would have ticked off a couple of boxes on England’s list of “Things We Need To Do To Win”.Unfortunately, there were far more ticks in boxes on England’s list of “Things We Definitely Do Not Need To Do If We Are To Have Any Chance Of Winning.” Amongst these would have been:(a) Drop a relatively straightforward catch in the first over of the innings;(b) Become just the eighth team in ODI history for whom five different bowlers have each conceded 60 runs in the same innings; and
(c) Ensure that, if one of your strategically crucial pace bowlers is going to take five wickets in an innings, he does not take them for a cost of 71 runs, thus recording England’s most expensive ODI five-for and the second most expensive ever, with three of those five wickets coming in the final three balls of the innings, sensationally restricting Australia from an unreachable 360 to a trifling 342.3. England’s bowlers have clearly been practising in the nets against England’s batsmen. And vice versa
There might have been some confusion over why England persisted with bowling short to Australia’s batsmen, despite an increasing body of evidence that such deliveries were not entirely conducive to not being smashed to or over the boundary. Things became significantly clearer when Australia’s bowlers persisted in bowling short to England’s batsmen, which proved entirely conducive to getting them out. It raised a chicken-and-egg type question: were England’s bowlers duped into bouncing the Australians because they had been bowling at England’s batsman in practice, or were England’s batsmen so confident at attacking the short ball because they had been facing England’s bowlers?4. Pakistan will need all of their bowlers to hit career peaks
Pakistan had no meaningful innings in their chase of 301 against India. Ahmed Shehzad’s 47 off 73 was a reasonable basis for something useful; when he was out, his innings became counterproductively slow rather than platform-buildingly steady. Misbah-ul-Haq batted well at the end, but only after the match was decided.Their bowling had been mostly decent, and was excellent in ensuring that India were unable to make the most of a perfect platform for late-over devastation. But if they are to have any chance, on the evidence presented in Adelaide, decent bowling will be woefully insufficient.If India proved at the last World Cup that it is possible to win the trophy without having one of the best bowling attacks, it is also true that the last five World Cups have been won by the best, or one of the best, batting sides. The last winners not to be in the top three batting teams in their tournament – Pakistan. In 1992. In Australia and New Zealand. Can history repeat itself? No. Or almost certainly not.Steven Finn: he wasn’t quite laughing on the inside, you know•Getty Images5. Virat Kohli is obsessed with stats
Kohli began the 2011 campaign with a century in India’s opening match in which he hit eight fours. He repeated that here. He was watching on from the boundary when Sachin Tendulkar, batting on 2, was run out after a schoolboy mix-up whilst he had a strike rate of 96 (28 off 29). So, when Shikhar Dhawan, batting on 2 on Sunday, reached 73 off 76, with the strike rate at 96, Kohli knew exactly what he had to do – and Dhawan was soon on his way, run out for the greater good, to ensure a now-unavoidable Indian triumph on March 29.6. West Indies are not the force they were
This sentence may well have been written more often than any other in the past 15 years of human existence, with the possible exception of “The internet is here to stay”, and “Where is my phone?”. Generally, these words are said with a wistful reminiscence of when the great Caribbean teams conquered the cricket world with a coolness, panache and vigour that will never be repeated by any team.After their capitulation to Ireland, when they were between ineffective and woeful for three-quarters of the match, some may now be looking back fondly only as far as the West Indies team of the 2011 World Cup, when a moderate team performed moderately until an absolute thrashing by Pakistan in the quarter-finals. Those were the days.7. West Indian batsmen can still break records and do things no-one else has previously done
Darren Bravo became the first top-eight batsman to be run out without facing in a World Cup match. The six previous nought-ball innings victims were all batting in the bottom three.8. Golden ducks are in fashion
As well as Bravo’s zero-ball duck, there have already been ten golden ducks in the first six matches of the tournament. At a rate of 1.66 first-ballers per match, this World Cup is setting new standards for instantaneous dismissals. In all previous World Cups, there had been 164 first-ballers in 352 games, at just under one golden duck every for every two matches played.Golden ducks had become more frequent since 1999 (0.55 per match in the four World Cups from then until 2011, compared with 0.37 in the first six tournaments). But first-baller inflation has ballooned out of control in the first four days of this tournament.There have been 16 ducks altogether in the first six games (2.66 per match, well above the World Cup historical average of 1.55 quackers per match), meaning that 62.5% of the ducks have been first ballers (not including Bravo’s 0th baller; two of the other ducks have been second-ball dismissals), which is more than twice the World Cup average of 30%.Balancing this out slightly, Morgan’s 24-minute blob was the equal fifth-longest World Cup duck in terms of minutes at the wicket, and the longest ever in the second innings of a World Cup match.Here endeth the duck stats. Amen.