T20 World Cup Picks

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while - I think after the IPL final I needed a bit of a break from cricket!

The T20 World Cup kicks off on the 5th of June in England and I guess I have to make some predictions here.

In terms of favourite to win the tournament I was a little surprised to see that the South African bookmakers have priced in India as the favourites followed by SA and then Australia.

Anyway I have placed a couple of bets here for outright winner. On current form I don't see how you can look beyond South Africa and with odds of 4-1 I think they're not a bad bet.

My next favourite was New Zealand - who I genuinely believe are going to be a handful in this tournament - and I got 8-1 on them.

The West Indies are one of those sides that blow hot and cold and bearing in mind that they've had some time in England, putting a few bucks down on them at 14-1 is a fair call I think.

Finally I got offered odds of 80-1 on Bangladesh so I put 5 bucks down on them. I don't have a huge amount of faith on them coming home but T20 is a lottery and might be a bit of fun to follow them and see what comes of it!

Sigh - the West Indies again...

Hahahahha the West Indies make me laugh - masters of self-destruction!

I put some bucks on them for the ODI against England this afternoon and I see that after a promising start from Chris Gayle, they are limping along at 150/7 after 35 overs....

Oh well - at least I got IPL final tickets.... Can't wait - got money on the Deccan Chargers - can't wait!

Adam Gilchrist

Heck it as to suck to be as talented as Adam Gilchrist! At 37 years old the guy is still blasting some of the best one-day international talent in the world to all corners of the park!

Tonight he bashed 85 off 37 balls and he has put the Deccan Chargers in the IPL final at Wanderers on Sunday. You have no idea how happy I am considering the series of close losses that the Deccan Chargers have taken in the last 3 games.

Even better than all of that - my wife and I have got VIP tickets to watch the final - it's gonna be a cracker and I'm gonna be cheering my lungs out as Gilly and Gibbs smash all comers!

Yes please!

Has the IPL been a success?

So has the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL) been a success in South Africa? I think this is the big question everybody is asking as the tournament winds down into its final week.

Personal opinion is - HELL YES...

I think the tournament has captured the imagination of both the traditional cricketing public as well as those who were not regular supporters of the game. I think the carnival atmosphere and the "franchise" system (as opposed to SA versus X) has also been a bit of fun as it as appealed to a wider local cricketing audience.

That says nothing about the quality of the social initiatives that the IPL has introduced in terms of their education grants that they dish out nice and liberally.

I have to take my hat off to the organisers, I think they've done a great service to South African sport.

Bugger!

So far my punt on the West Indies is not looking that great. It didn't help that Day 2 was rained out but now if they can show a bit of back-bone they can at least bat out for the draw.... They've just gotta get a few runs on the board.

Locally we're going into the last week of the IPL and what a great tournament it has been for South Africa.

A couple of nice games on the board today:

• Rajasthan Royals vs Delhi Daredevils
• Deccan Chargers vs Kings Punjab
  

Lots of fun and games and well done to everybody who brought this competition to South Africa!

West Indies to beat England in 2nd test...

Ok so I've been battling to sleep following the ill advised decision to partake in some Jager Bombs.

Anyway I was surfing around looking for some interesting bets and I realised that the West Indies take on England in the second test match starting today.

So knowing how the West Indies blow hot and cold, I've decided to back them to win the second test and put some money on the table having had some luck back guys in the IPL.

So my bets are here for some transparency:

Outright win - West Indies
Top batter 1st innings - West Indies - Shiv Chanderpaul
Top batter 1st innings - England - Andrew Strauss

Wish me luck!

Bloody hell - how was that Deccan Chargers collapse yesterday?!

Saturday mumblings

Ashes thoughts
I see Shane Warne has been quite critical of the English decision not to play the first Ashes test at Lords... Have to agree with him - this is supposed to be the greatest (traditional) cricket rivalry and you've got two sides playing in Wales?

I think the IPL - and to a lesser degree the SA vs. Aussie series - has shown just how important marketing is for cricket. As much as the purists would love things like the "Ashes brand" to try and carry on as is, the reality is that cricket needs to place marketing ahead of all else at the moment...

... I reead somewhere that the English didn't want to play the first match at Lords because the atmosphere was basically so hyped-up that it benefitted the touring sides.

To me that is really negative marketing for the game - If that were in South Africa or Australia the home marketing teams would be urging fans to come down in their droves to make sure that the home side "defied history"... and the fans would get into it and they would cheer every single wicket and run.

To me it doesn't make any sense and pushes cricket backward rather than forward.

West Indies
I see the West Indies once again collapsed in spectacular fashion yesterday to give a big win to the English.

Don't think you can read too much into this performance, simply because that is what the West Indies do - they simply switch-off when the tide is against them and decide to come back to the next test match and try again.

It would be nice to see them give the Poms a bit of a working over before the Ashes though!

Onions and Sidebottom

I don't mean to be completely facetious - ok yeah I do - can you really take a side seriously when their bowling attack comprises guys named Sidebottom and Onions...??

I mean what are you going to have:

C Cook B Onions....?!

On a more serious note though the English have got the West Indies against the ropes at Lords in the first test match. Have to give credit where credit is due - the English showed a bit of innovation opening their bowling with Swann.

Cricket is a funny old game!

Sports - changing world order

I believe quite strongly that a combination of the IPL and the economic (financial) crisis will fundamentally change sport across the globe. I'm probably going to say a few things that are going to be considered a little controversial but it's something I've been intrigued by for quite a while now.

Broadly speaking up until a few years ago the financial power of world sport remained in two major power centres - the US and Europe (Specifically the UK).

Even now the big money in rugby, soccer, motorsport and golf still emanates from these parts... but I don't expect that to last.

Some predictions:

• I expect in five years time that Bangladeshi cricket will have overtaken English cricket in the test and One Day International rankings
• Argentina rugby will be stronger than the European nations within seven years
• In less than a decade I don't believe that the English premiership will be regarded as the leading football league in the world
• Clubs like Manchester United, Barcelona and Chelsea will be competing with clubs from places like South America, the US and Asia in a global league in the not too distant future as opposed to the UEFA tournaments.
• Bit of a wild one but I believe that South Africa will have one competitive football team in this tournament in ten years
• I believe that the premier rugby competition - which will usurp the Super 14 - will be played out of either South Africa or Japan inside the next seven years and will work along the same lines as the IPL cricket system with either a bid or draft offering to pick sides.
• Motorsport will be dominated by Chinese and Indian manufacturers and representatives and the Middle East and mainstream Asia will host most of the glamour races
• Support for international brands such as the Springboks, All Blacks, Proteas, Wallabies etc will decline over the next ten years with cross-border franchises attracting greater support.

Obviously there are a lot of people who don't want to hear about the changing global world order but at the end of the day it is a numbers game - China, India, the rest of Asia and Brazil to some extent are growing rapidly at all levels...

1. Look at what China achieved at the last world Olympics
2. Look at the support the IPL has attracted - it's HUGE money and prestige that far outweighs what the international cricket boards can afford to pay their players.
3. F1 used to be the domain of the European manufacturers... suddenly the likes of Toyota are coming in and the Middle East is pouring money into development of tracks and teams - things are going to look very different in a few years time...

Does it sound like lunatic fringe stuff or do you think there is some merit to it all? Would love your input?

IPL observation

I have an observation on this years IPL... T20 isn't a young mans game and experience has counted for a helluva lot this year.




Have a look at the top batters after 6 games - age in brackets:

• Matthew Hayden (37)
• Suresh Raida (23)
• Adam Gilchrist (37)
• Sachin Tendulkar (36)
• Herschelle Gibbs (35)

Obviously runs are pretty closely contested in this format of the game but I think its interesting that apart from Raida, the top batters are 35 and older - so much for smash and bash one day cricket.

Rahul Dravid (36) is also in the mix just below the top 5.

The bowlers were a very mixed bag with Yusuf Abdullah topping the ranks followed by "Slinger" Malinga.... Indian legspin master Anil Kumble was there or there abouts but no clear trend seemed to come through on the bowling front.

In terms of the batters though - I wonder if it is a case that they're not batting with a weight of expectation on their shoulders and are just going out to have a bit of fun or maybe administrators and fans get so wrapped up in "the next big thing" that we forget how much value and experience thes guys bring to the party?