Afro-Asia Mismatch
The World Cup proved just how much the equality of the two sides taking the pitch goes into creating a great game, but unfortunately the 2 sides taking the field in the Afro-Asia Twenty20 yesterday were anything but evenly matched. I realise that it was a Twenty20 so Test experience is perhaps not the best gague of skill levels in this form of the game, but a lopsided 207 Test matches had been played by the Asian XI, to just 5 by the African team. Here's the African team:
Bosman, Bodi, Ouma, Mishra, Obanda, Dabengwa, Odhiambo, Morkel, Tshabalala, Mupariwa, Varaiya.
Clearly I'm not keeping up on my African cricket because only Bosman and Morkel even ring a bell! If you are the same, I've linked each player off to their Cricinfo profile so that you can find out about them if you so wish! By contrast, here is the Asian XI - no need to link off to their profiles I assume....
Iqbal, Nazir, Akmal, Ashraful, Dilshan, Malik, Afridi, Maharoof, Mortaza, Razzaq, Sreesanth.
Given the quality of the two sides that Asia only won with 4 overs to spare, possibly partly due to them batting Shahid Afridi who could have won the game very quickly if he'd got going. You can see the scorecard here.
What a pointless game. You've heard me burble about what a waste of time some of these extra games are - the only thing that gives them any credibility is if the two sides are top quality. These sort of games may make a quick buck, but they will surely lose all credibility unless the teams are fairly matched.
