Off Stump

After the first nine days of the tournament, I have to say that the quality of matches has been better than expected, maybe because so many of the top teams are relatively evenly matched making results difficult to predict. Still early in the tournament, but so far Australia, South Africa and Pakistan look a cut above the rest which I suppose points to the fact that in sub-continental conditions the teams with the best bowling will usually be on top in a tournament this long. India have been shockingly poor in the field even by their usually indifferent standards and a semi-final place will need a lot of luck. The scheduling of the tournament is still the worst part of it though. Why there aren't two matches each day is unfathomable as is the fact that India play South Africa in Nagpur where crowds aren't bothering to turn up whereas Eden Gardens plays host to Ireland v. Netherlands and Kenya v. Zimbabwe, surely the two most anticipated clashes! ;-) Politics is clearly well a...

In five days time, what is probably the most bloated world championship in a global sport will kick off. The ICC doesn't seem to have learnt lessons from 2007 and this next edition of the cricket World Cup will probably end up being as tedious as the previous one. Hopefully there will be enough upsets to keep things somewhat interesting over the first 42 matches before the quarter-finals. 42 may not seem like that many considering that the football world cup has 48 before a round of 16. But considering how wide the net of football is spread, that's appropriate. But 42 matches for a sport that only 10 countries play seriously and another half-dozen try to play seriously is absurd, to say the least. Bloating averages and causing more injuries is all it will achieve worst case and best case, we might have Bangladesh reach the quarter finals. Pity that Afghanistan could not make it amongst the minnows, they would have definitely been worth watching more than Canada or the Netherlan...