Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan

It was a usual, mild November evening. I had gone to my maternal aunt’s house for a dinner with my mother. Me and a couple of my cousins were eagerly watching the final between Pakistan and New Zealand. Confident that Pakistan will easily chase the 212 target, we set about discussing who will be the man-of-the-match, how much will Boom Boom Afridi score, and bla bla bla. Less did we know, our cricket team had a terrible surprise up its sleeve. One after another, like a pack of cards or a like a falling Domino puzzle, our batsmen started losing their wickets by playing totally wild and rash strokes.

It seemed as if they wanted to score stylishly rather than winning the match. It was totally unprecedented to witness world-class batsmen playing like a gang of 13 year-olds out to impress their friends. Suddenly, the small score of 212 on a good batting track was not looking that small and achievable anymore. After being 86-8, I thought Pakistan is going to lose it by a huge margin. Sensing a defeat, we decided to answer my aunt’s call for dinner. We didn’t even talk about the match during the dinner as we were totally disgusted. Moreover, we didn’t want to spoil the taste of the deliciously cooked food that we were having. Finishing our dinner, we went back to our cousin’s room and switched on TV only to find Umer gul get out on the next ball. At this stage, we were sure it would be Pakistan’s lowest total against the Kiwis. Again, we shouldn’t have been so sure about our cricket team. The Pakistani cricketers once again proved why they are termed as the most unpredictable team in the history of World cricket.

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by .

Well its been finally decided that Pakistan will host the Champions Trophy as the ICC board finally decided to Pakistan as a host ending months of speculation over the venue due to security concerns.

However, it must be noted that seven of the ICC board’s ten Full Members, lead by India, expressed their overwhelming support for Pakistan, while the three dissenting votes were from England, Australia and New Zealand (South Africa ??)- who have now in turn decided to play a sore loser and have informed the governing body that their players “don’t want to” play in Pakistan due to the prevailing security climate there”.

This bunch of sore losers have joined hands yet again to yet again isolate the eastern block, initially such a rift was seen during Daryll Hair’s scandal where the same cricketing boards had bunched together and face off with the Asian bloc

The tussle between ICL and ICC continues to no end – yesterday the players association entered into the fray by issuing a statement which generally supports the players rights to play in the Indian Cricket League. I can only suspect this will aggravate things even more considering the extremist attitude adopted by the national boards

Cricinfo – Tim May, the chief executive of FICA, the international players’ association, has expressed his concern over attempts by national boards to impose bans on players who have signed for the unauthorised Indian Cricket League.

Making clear that FICA “neither supports nor rejects the ICL”, May said that his organisation’s primary aim “is to ensure that players rights are upheld and that governing bodies do not unreasonably restrain players from plying their trade”.

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by Teeth Maestro.

India one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds were among the players to attract big-money bids in the Indian Premier League player auction today.

Chennai paid US dollars 1.5million for Dhoni early on, while Symonds became the most expensive overseas player in the third round of bidding when Hyderabad forked out US dollars 1.35million for his services.

Retiring Australia wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist attracted a bid of US dollars 700,000 from Hyderabad, who also acquired South Africa batsman Herschelle Gibbs and Pakistan spinner Shahid Afridi for US dollars 575,000 and 675,000.

IPL chairman Lalit Modi was surprised by the lack of interest in some players.

He said: “I haven’t had the opportunity to really judge player value before, but some of the players have gone so well, while some have gone for much less than I expected.

“Players like MS Dhoni and Andrew Symonds were bid aggressively (for) by all the tables.

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by S. M. Faisal .

People of Pakistan are abuzz with the tickling thought of another world cup victory. It may not be the World Cup of the fuller version 50 over game but its still a trophy to carry home with pride. There are flashback fond memories of a nation huddled in prayer during the months of Ramadan back in 1992, yet again its Ramadan and Pakistan is on the verge of conquering this beast yet again.

Pakistan batted well, it trumped Australia a few days back more so as I feel the Aussies underperformed, dropping catches and coming through with average style bowling. Today with New Zealand it was yet again the same story, dropped catches, poor batting and average bowling. I do not mean to steal the thunder from the Pakistan Cricket team, but I feel luck was in their favor and would have to bat out of their pants regardless of who emerges from the second semi-final.

Guest Post by Faisal Sherdil

I have calculated the points and here is the current status of world cup teams.

1. Ireland, Bangladesh and West Indies are already out of the cup. There is no way they can quality to Semis. Australia is confirmed in the semis (though they have to beat one of Ireland, Sri Lanka or NZ, which they will).

2. The next Borderline team to get out is England. They have 2 more games, against South Africa and West Indies. They have to win both the games. If they lose any, they are out. Then the Semi Finalists would be (Australia, NZ, Sri Lanka and South Africa).

3. However, if England wins both its games (unlikely though), then still they do not qualify directly, but rather fall in a Triangle with two other teams. In that triangle, two of the three teams would qualify. This Triangle can be one of the following two:

Triangle 1: If Today NZ wins against Srilanka, then NZ qualifies. Then the 3 teams in Triangle would be Srilanka, South Africa and England. Run-Rate will be used to decide the top 2. (Note that in such a scenario, it would be like this: South Africa beat Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka beat England, and England beats South Africa. So run-rate needed)

As the World Cup draws near, we are being hit every day with news of another player that must miss out for such and such reason. Each of these incidents is a shame, because the whole point of the tournament is to bring together the best talent in the world. But few are as interesting as the two most recent tragedies.

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by Billu.net .

The good thing about watching NZ’s fantastic win this morning was that it completely rejuvenated my hopes of Pakistan winning the World Cup. Confused? Don’t worry I’ll explain my self. You see everyone’s now raving on about the Kiwis as being a good contender for the World Cup, but only a couple of week ago New Zealand had lost 6 out of their 7 games in the preceding Common Wealth Bank tri series down under.

Yet they’ve now come back to win three successive games, all in quite spectacular fashion, albeit against a half strength Australian side. But that’s not it, the most remarkable of their wins, a chase of 347 in the last game, came when they had rested their two best bowlers! If you look at the NZ side and compare it with Pakistan, on paper at least we’re quite similar: lots of hard hitting batting down the order, unpredictable top order and a bowling attack that relies too much on the fitness of its key strike bowler(s). So if NZ can turn their fortunes around and make Australia think long and hard, why can’t Pakistan?