Is it too much to ask to have some foresight to ensure that the games can be carried forward to the next day to make it a full game of 50 overs each instead of one day slam-bang?
(But to associate foresight and ICC, I must be associating Wolfowitz with ethics!)
The umpires definitely goofed up. Rudi is being offered as the sacrificial lamb at the altar by Crowe. 20 overs is all it takes to call the game and we instruct all tyros about that all the time!
In truth, the happenings in the dark at Kensington oval yesterday was truly the icing on the cake for the most bumbling, administratively painful, least imaginative and probably least-followed world event of any sports. India and Pakistan did not help matters when they were dissociated by the future pretenders much early in the day.
But true cricket fans like you and me, persisted. Watched the game unto unGodly hours; put our backsides on the line with guesses and what not? Hopefully the following list was good enough to whet our appetite:
- Woolmer's untimely demise through poisoning, strangling and Pakistani in-fighting
- Ireland's chicken & ferret dance celebrations; thanks Johnston and Smith...
- Gibbs' million dollar charity event of six-sixes-in-six
- Greg Chappell saying that you can't blame anybody for the Indian debacle!
- Malinga's four-in-four against SA
- Google's April 1st Joke
- Ravi Bopara can become the next big English hope
- Slow-left-arm-spin trio from Bangladesh
- Lara's Powerplay goof-up against South Africa (77 runs in five overs!)
- Exit of Lara, McGrath, Arnold and quite a few others who would announce their retirements sooner than later
- Mahela's strut and that classic innings against the Kiwis
- The gulf between Australia and rest of the world *****
The list can go on for some more...
Sometime back FIDE (that is the ICC equivalent for Chess; almost as inept as ICC) did this for determining the world chess champion. The current winner will wait for a qualifying tournament to throw the challenger to face him. Then he gets to play the challenger and the new champion will thus be crowned.
We can do something similar to that in cricket as well.
Call for a championship without Australia. The winner will be called World Challenger Champion. Then the World Challenger Champion will face Australia in a best-of-three to decide the World Champion.
Simple. Less number of once-sided games. All of Australia's 11 games in WC2k7 have been grossly one-sided. (I have a suspicion that it was the same in WC2K3 as well. Lazy to go and do the checking...) Add the Ireland and Bangladesh games, it was excruciating.
As Kent rightly reminded me of the BeeGees lyrics, all the pretenders had was only one thing: WORDS!"It's only words, and words are all I have, (to take your heart away . . .)"
But the Aussies had the deeds and they are rightly the hat-trick champions.
More about those commentary box comedians later.
Before I sign-off...
A big thanks to all of you readers, participants, contributors and the family for making this exercise an enjoyable one. For those who know me, getting me to be punctual is an achievement in itself. So, all credit goes to you all for your interest was the one that drove me.
Your feedback & comments are welcome [Pls use the comments feature in the blog itself; email also can]
Until the next one...
3 comments:
Sri-G, great show !!! It was really surprising to see the updates in the morning as soon as one comes into the office. And looks like you did watch all the matches fully. The trivia section was another intesting aspect that I liked.
SriG,
I am not much of a cricket person, but followed the game through your blog this season.
Keep writing...
Hi Sri G,
How about more such things from you? It was good to see u awake and around in the mornings for almost a month(has it ever happened in our family before).
Thanks to your passions and the WC 2007
MBBS
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