Today was the Battle of Cake Tin between the hobbits and the orcs. Hobbits thrashed orcs as expected. I usually love the orcs for their joie de vivre. But today it was noticeably absent!
The Kiwi-Gandalf aka the Martian-with-only-two-left-toes Guptill wielded his staff with supreme authority. At the innings break, the West Indians were so deflated that the Windy City of Wellington had an extra swirl of wind!
In this tournament, watching the New Zealanders bat, bowl, field and bond is so refreshing.
Every ball batted has been faced with the express intent of scoring and not blocking. Every bowl bowled was delivered with the keen intent of securing a wicket - mind you, not purchasing but securing!
Every ball that went to the out-field was chased with the unique intent of saving that run.
As a result you see a team that is redefining cricket in an endearing way, sans the bullying that one associates with Australia or South Africa. As a corollary, they seem to have taken the pressure of playing at home much more easily than the Aussies.
The proof of the pudding of this 'Kiwism' was the TUI catch by Vettori today to dismiss Samuels. Poor Samuels, as it is he was hoping that the ground would open up and swallow him after he dropped Guptill when the Martian was on 4 - yes, you read that right, 4! To add a plethora of insults to that injury worth 233 runs, that one-handed blinder by Vettori! In the bargain, Vettori gained a few TUI orange t-shirts :-)
The West Indies innings was fabulous and met the run-rate throughout. There was a small problem of losing wickets regularly and also in clusters! Gayle showed some spunk and that was it.
So, the semis are settled nicely - 1 vs 2 and 1 vs 2. About 1.2 billion populace and a few million sheep want it to be a '1 vs 1' next Sunday. Let us see.
Q-Section:
That was a gentle half-volley. 3 points to Bhuvana, AngelAsh and Raghav.
The pretty lady in question is Manorama, the evergreen humour queen of Tamil cinema.
The quiz position seems to be quite steady.
No question until Monday evening before the semi-final#1.
Enjoy the respite!
G-Section:
Today's game was kind to Siva* and Rambo.
More changes in the positions.
You can send in the guesses for the semis. Each semi is 100 credits worth.
Guesses to the usual place.
(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)
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