Ashes Day 1 musings...

A solid enough performance from the South African B side (AKA England) today against the Aussies but I get the sense that they are batting for / will be content with a draw?

I thought Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus were the pick of the bowlers which is quite ironic considering that 8 months ago I was slating Siddle and not exactly complimentary of Hilfenhaus. This Ashes tour seems to have been a really important stepping stone for Hilfy in that he now knows what is expected of him.

As much as I would like to see the South Africans trump the Aussies to win the Ashes I don't think that they have the desire to win it which is disappointing considering the spirit they showed in the second test match.

Other thoughts

• I was obviously being a bit tongue-in-cheek around the "South African B" side nickname for England but surely it is a sign when Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Strauss, Matt Prior and now Jonathan Trott are likely to make-up the England batting line-up for the forseeable future - where exactly is the ENGLISH talent coming through?
• I wasn't joking when I said that in 10 years time Bangladesh cricket would have surpassed the English in test rankings.
• On the subject of Bangladesh, I see that they have thumped Zimbabwe comfortably in an ODI series and I say good for them. Beating the current Zimbabwe and the West Indian sides isn't going to set the world alight but they must be given opportunities to play against the top sides and maybe host a few international matches as well to make sure that Bangladesh cricket thrives
• The West Indies and their ICC Champions Trophy antics I just shake my head at.... not sure what there is to be made from this anymore
  

Mixed feelings

Is there any way that the England "leg" of the Ashes could be moved to somewhere that rain doesn't always cock up a good series?

Surely there is a case for it being moved to a more civilised cricket destination like India, Bangladesh or South Africa??!?!?!?!?! I wonder if there has been any research done into whether or not the mediocre standard of English cricket is directly related to the poor weather they experience?

Anyway enough about the Ashes - it (the weather aspect) has been disappointing to say the least.

What I actually wanted to blog about was this whole West Indies vs. Bangladesh series which has left me with some real mixed feelings about world cricket - even though it fits in with my expectations of the change in the global game. For those who don't know I expect world cricket to be dominated by the likes of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka with the likes of South Africa, Australia, Kenya and Zimbabwe fitting in amongst the top nations as the world becomes more focused on Asia and Africa.

Whether it goes the whole franchise route over international "country" route still remains to be seen.

I have previously blogged about how badly the world needs a strong West Indian cricket offering so watching this disaster of a series against Bangladesh has irritated me immensely.

On the flip side of that, I think some big pluses for the Bangladesh team. They've needed a decent international tour to build some momentum and irrespective of the quality of the West Indian side, the tourists got the job done.

Don't underestimate the value of that providing some incentive for the rest of their cricket population. The money that will keep flowing into Bangladesh cricket is likely to keep rising the more they start beating the bigger "name" sides and as the side matures and they develop a pipeline of quality players you will in turn find them becoming more and more competitive.

But still... it would be nice to see the West Indies not rolling over and becoming a drag on world cricket.

T20 Day 2

So Holland came through for me and beat the Poms at Lords! Hahahahhaha what a great start to the T20 World Cup - nothing better than watching the English side self destruct and keep letting the underdogs back into the side.

Lots of cricket on today and here are the bets I have placed. Teams haven't been confirmed so check the betting

New Zealand vs Scotland

• Coetzer - Top Scottish batter
  
• Ross Taylor or Jacob Oram to top the New Zealand batting - although Oram would assume that the Scots take a few wickets
  

Australia vs West Indies

• West Indies to win the game
• Dwayne Bravo - West Indies top batter
• David Hussey - Top Aussie batter

India vs. Bangladesh

• Ashraful - Top Bangladesh batter
  
• Top indian batter I spread three bets across Sehwag, Pathan and Jadeja (if he plays)
  

Happy punting

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!

Why world cricket needs a strong West Indies

Watching the English batting order collapse is a bit like watching speedster Usain Bolt run the 100m... blink and you miss it...

Thought that it would be a good way to kick off this blog post, seeing as the West Indies cricket board has a picture (left) of Bolt partying it up after thumping the English...

It's good to see the Windies on form at the moment and it is helluva important for world cricket.

As for the Poms and their decline over the last decade, maybe they've just accepted the inevitable that their mud island is slowly slipping away into the sea and the empire will never return to its glory days.

It is so important for world cricket at this point to have a strong West Indian side. The Australians and South Africans have slogged it out over the last few months and India have been right in the mix with tough series against both these powerhouses.

But cricket cannot be about three sides at the moment... especially with the emergence of the big money IPL.

Pakistan can be explosive on their day but ill discipline continues to plague them and away from home tends to be one disaster after another.

Sri Lanka and the Black Caps are always there or there abouts without really threatening away from home conditions (current Aussie tour aside).

The English (AKA South Africa's B-side with KP and Strauss leading the charge) hold no real worries away from home.

Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Kenya simply lack a decent number of quality players to be of any real threat... but I do have high hopes for Bangladesh over the next 10 years or so.

Which leaves the West Indies as potentially the fourth quality touring side in the mix. These guys have no problem winning away from home - when it suits them - and they have quality fast bowlers and some serious firepower in the batting lineup... again when it suits them.

A quality West Indian side would be great for world cricket right now and a thumping of the English may just give them the confidence to step up their game.... In other words - Give the english CARROTS!

Case for SA 'A' side

Watching the Bangladeshi capitulation against the South African pace attack yesterday, a strong case could be made for a four day fixture between the South African first team vs. the SA ‘A’ side before major tours – if they cannot find quality opposition then the opposition should be produced from our local ranks..

Guys like Dillon Du Preez, Monde Zondeki, JP Duminy, Albie Morkel, Johann Louw, Vaughan Van Jaarsveld etc. who are all a pretty big part of SA cricket could have made for some testing opposition and would have given the SA selectors something to think about ahead of the Australian tour….

Think maybe the SA management have missed a trick here…

Observation - fielding

Just watching the South Africans playing against Bangladesh at the moment and Ashraful has just dropped Graeme Smith on 51.

Earlier in the innings, Mortaza dropped Hashim Amla on 15.

Both batters are now comfortably trucking along at around 5 and a half an over.

The Bangladeshi's I think dropped one on Friday night as well and then their fielding was very undisciplined at the Twenty/20 game on Wednesday night.

I actually watched them warming up before the Twenty/20 game and even when they were practicing, there was a pretty high number of drops. If you're dropping catches in your practice sessions, then you can't be surprised when catches are going down in matches...

You can't dispute that they are enthusiastic about their cricket, but they need to really sharpen up this aspect of their game if they are going to make a go of a match...

If you consider that they game away 6 runs in over throws in the Twenty/20 game, which they lost by 12 runs, you start to realise just how important those basics are....

SA vs. Bangladesh - 2nd ODI

Sports Trader makes it's predictions for the second South Africa vs. Bangladesh One Day International to be played at Willomore Park in Benoni this morning....

Despite the spirited performance of the Bangladeshi's in the Twenty/20 game as well as the first ODI, we're not giving any consideration to the fact that they will win a fixture. (Rain permitting we get a result)

For this reason, we need to look at the individual player performances from a betting perspective.

Top Batsman odds offered by Worlds Sports Betting:
South Africa
JH Kallis - 33/10
GC Smith - 33/10
HM Amla - 7/2
AB De Villers - 4/1
JL Ontong - 5/1
JP Duminy - 5/1

Bangladesh
M Ashraful - 3/1
T Iqbal - 7/2
MJ Siddique - 5/1
I Kayes - 6/1
S Hasan - 6/1

On the Bangladesh side, we don't think you can look beyond Ashraful, he's been in great form and has very little respect for the SA bowlers at present.

We're backing Duminy at 5/1 as the top batter from the SA side.

Carrying that forward, we're looking at JP Duminy (16/1) to win the man of the match award as well....

Good cricket...

Watching the South Africa vs. Bangladesh game at the moment and very impressed by the cricket being shown by the Bangladesh side.

SA are currently 149-3 after 31.4 overs and its great to watch the battle between the SA batters and the Bangladeshi spinners.

Good to see the Bangladesh team staying in the game!

AB ala Jonty

One of my oldest cricketing memories is the image of a very young Jonty Rhodes making that famous diving run out of Inzamam Ul-Haq, when South Africa played in their first ever cricket world cup.

For those who don't remember, Inzy (who will never be remembered for his great running between the wickets) thought about a risky single just behind backward point. His partner at the time turned him back - a bit like turning the Titanic? - when he realised that Rhodes had fielded the ball.

Jonty realising that no keeper had come up to the stumps picked up the ball and took Inzy on in a flat out sprint before diving in and breaking the wickets....

... aaaaaaahhhh what history!

Last night in the South Africa vs. Bangladesh game, we had another fantastic piece of fielding. Johan Botha came charging in to take a catch which fell just in front of him. He recovered extremely quickly and fired the ball in to AB De Villiers who was keeping wicket and De Villiers made his own diving run out.

A great bit of cricket !

SA vs. Kenya and Bangladesh

A lot of people (myself included) have been very critical about the Kenyan and Bangladesh cricket teams touring South Africa. My opinion changed slightly at the 20/20 game at the Wanderers last night...

I'm going to deal with Kenya first because they are earlier in the 'process' than Bangladesh who have had to walk a similar line.

Kenya Let's be honest - Kenya is nowhere at the moment in world cricket. They don't have the firepower or the structures in place to be competitive for probably
the next decade - that's not a nasty assessment - its a brutal fact.

Having said that, we had the opportunity to see a young talented player like Alex Obanda come on to the world scene and reinforce that developing cricket nations like Kenya can and are producing come really great cricketing talent.

I was surfing around the internet this morning looking for some info on Kenyan cricket and was highly surprised to find a dedicated blog to Kenyan cricket. Check them out - they're here at: http://kenyacricket.blogspot.com/

A search on the internet revealed thousands of pages following the development of the sport in the region which I think is hugely important for spreading the game away from the traditional powerhouses.

I think its brilliant that a nation with such a fledgling cricket community!

The trick is to make sure that guys like Obanda get as much as exposure to high levels of first class cricket as possible and build their experience and playing records so that they can put more back into the game domestically.

Bangladesh
Anybody who was at the Wanderers last night will attest to the fact that for every 3 South African fans in the crowd, there must have been 1 Bangladeshi fan. The noise and support for this tiny cricket nation is growing - and it's growing fast!

When Mohammed Ashraful came out to bat and he started dispatching the SA bowlers to all ends of the park in his brief little innings, the Bangladeshi's got excited - they were in the game!

The fans were cheering, the cricket wasn't the best from a 'thinking' perspective, but at the end of the day everybody got full for their money.

I look at a talent like Ashraful and I know that the idea of taking the game to other countries across the world is working.

The guy on merit could probably be competitive in any top 6 batting lineup at the moment.

He needs his head checked every now and then to stop him throwing his wicket away, but you can't deny the talent!

One can only hope that we see more of this kind of talent coming out of Kenya and Bangladesh over the next few seasons. The more talent being exposed to top level cricket, the better the health of the world game...

SA vs. Bangladesh

From the Sports Trader blog.

It's South Africa vs Bangladesh in the 20/20 fixture this evening in Johannesburg.

World Sports Betting have released their odds for the game.

Match odds aren't particularly juicy with South Africa being quoted at 1/7 and Bangladesh at 4/1.

But I thought you could have some fun with the best batter odds.

South Africa best batter odds
HH Gibbs - 33/10
AB De Villers - 7/2
LL Bosman - 4/1
JP Duminy - 4/1
JL Ontong - 5/1
JA Morkel - 7/1

Bangladesh best batters
M Ashraful - 7/2
T Iqbal - 4/1
MJ Siddique - 4/1
M Hossain - 11/2
N Islam - 11/2
S Hasan - 6/1

Albie Morkel at 7/1 looks pretty decent. He's made for 20/20 cricket.

For the rest, I think its a bit of a lottery....