Strange selection issues at Steyning

Sorting out the Steyning sides last night was a very strange experience. I'm used to discussing potential names that could be approached in a desperate attempt to fill out the bottom side, knowing that 9 is the minimum needed to get a side out. Once you have 9 the game can go ahead, and there's always the chance of finding someone from a pub, club etc (I remember getting my 11th for a Sunday match in a London night club about a decade ago).

Last night, the discussion at Steyning was all about who would get left out from the 3rd XI, the bottom side. Good honest club cricketers, available throughout the season, might not get a game this Saturday. What a problem to have! It's not quite as simple as just adding a side, although the numbers suggest we could, because Steyning have only one pitch. But as we have a thriving Colts section that just keeps churning out players good enough to play adult cricket, we're no doubt going to have to overcome that and create a 4th XI at some point.

Talking of the thriving Colts section, selecting the 1st XI involved picking two under 16s and narrowly leaving out an under 17. It comes to something when a player has the 95 extension to his email address to indicate the year in which he was born, and yet he isn't the youngest in a side selected entirely on merit. Rather than let anyone point it out I will make the point for you - yes, those two players are less than half my age!

Will Shafayat make it back?

I was amazed when I got The Spin yesterday and read about Bilal Shafayat, aged 26 and apparently on the County Cricket scrapheap, or the 1st XI scrapheap anyway. A teenage prodigy, I assumed that the very least Shafayat would make of his cricketing career was to be a regular County pro. I realised he was struggling to make the impression his talent suggested he should (I've now seen he has a first-class average of 30), but it didn't occur to me he might find it difficult to find a County.

Interesting then that he's trying to make it back into the County game via Sussex 2s, with some decent initial success. Owain Jones, a Steyning product who now plays his cricket at Horsham played in that match and he couldn't have been more complimentary about Shafayat's input. Such is Shafayat's experience and knowledge "he seemed more like 40 than 26" apparently. Only time will tell if Shafayat will make it back, but even if he doesn't it sounds like some of the Sussex 2's squad will benefit from his experience and be more likely to make it themselves as a result.

Duckworth-Lewis go up in my estimation

I know, I know, I'm a little behind. But hopefully I'll catch up over the next 48 hours. This piece in The Guardian about Duckworth-Lewis weekend before last completely changed my opinion of them - they insisted on meeting over a "pub lunch in semi-rural Oxfordshire"! I wonder if it's a pub known to Thames Tourists...

Considering criticism of the DL method, I'd have to say that criticism tends to come when the cricketing authorities try to use their calculations over too short-a-period. For example, can you shorten a Twenty20 match and get a fair result? Not really...why bother trying?

Anyway, DL are doing their best and anyone that runs meetings over lunch in semi-rural Oxfordshire goes up in my estimation. I trust they were drinking Brakspears....

[One final note - on going to the Brakspears site the rotating homepage image is of The Unicorn at Peppard and the King William at Hailey- pubs definitely known to Thames Tourists].

Bad luck for residents of Dartmouth

Off to spend a week in Dartmouth so do all the checking on the internet - pubs, pub quizzes, places to visit etc. Then you think 'wonder if I can watch some cricket?' Extraordinary - Dartmouth, population 5,512 has no cricket club! Having been raised in the rus and suburbs of the home counties it never occurred to me that such a prominent town wouldn't or couldn't have a cricket club.
Rugby Club yes as many burble readers know and soccer yes ( sine qua non) but no cricket club. It doesn't bear thinking about. There is something called The Dart and District Cricket Club but that seems to be a league of pub teams - better than nothing ; in fact better than most things. Oh and there's Dartmouth College Cricket Club, but that's in America.
I think I'll have to concentrate on drinking (closer to my skill level, anway)

Happy cricket reading....

Apologies for the low levels of Burbling lately - been pretty busy but I'll try to Burbletastic next week! In the mean time, have you seen that The Cricketer has a new look site now that the Wisden Cricketer magazine is overseen by the likes of Jonathan Agnew and CMJ? Alternatively you can read about Adil Rashid getting worse and Ben Stokes getting better at King Cricket. Or Reverse Sweep's piece about how we should look out for 17-year old Reece Topley following his wicket-taking antics for Essex. Happy cricket reading....

Sensational batting from Shane Watson

Shane Watson: 185 not out from 96 balls. Tendulkar's 200 was truly amazing, but had Australia been batting first, just imagine what Watson might have ended up with!!

A world first - 5 wickets in an over

Well OK, I'm sure it's been done before outside of first class cricket, but this was the first time in first class cricket. Soon to be New Zealander, Neil Wagner, was the lucky man who took 4 wickets in a row before a bad ball wrecked his over(!), and then he bounced back with another wicket. With a first class average of 22 with the ball, South African-born Wagner looks like he might be taking the field for New Zealand when he qualifies for them next year.

Martin Crowe needs to learn to split work and play

Apparently, it's all become too much and Martin Crowe has resigned from the Cricket Committee in New Zealand because of a conflict of interests. He wants Ross Taylor to be named captain now but others aren't so sure. That's not a conflict of interest, that's a disagreement on policy. He's resigned in a huff because he hasn't got his way. If Taylor really is his mate, then Crowe might want to consider whether he's helping his mate by being so open about his stance on the captaincy, or if he just fancies a few headlines for himself.

What would you do if you won the World Cup?

It seems that for MS Dhoni, the answer was to cut his hair. Here's a photo of him just after the final. And here's a photo of Dhoni the next day holding his man-of-the-match award and the World Cup.

Clearly he's not a drinker (and he's said as much). But his countrymen are as alcohol sales have jumped with India's success....

Afridi talks nonsense

Oh dear. No stranger to controversy, Shahid Afridi spoiled what was a good World Cup campaign that led to his team being received by the Pakistani PM (the PM being castigated by some for the cost to the tax-payer of the reception), by suggesting that "Indian's will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. I don't think they have the clean and large hearts that Allah has given us." Sigh. No further comment required really, but this article tries to make sense of the way religion is sometimes aligned with cricket in Asia.

Clarke takes over from Ponting

Michael Clarke began his tenure as Australian captain today in a friendly in Bangladesh yesterday and made a run a ball half century before retiring. I think his batting form is going to be critical - from his matches captaining Australia when Ponting was either injured or rested, he appears to be tactically superior, but his form seems to dip in and out and a significant bad run at the start of his captaincy could cause the Australian selectors problems. Should Clarke have problems with the captaincy, his vice-captain is Shane Watson, and you know my thoughts on Watson as a potential captain!

Tears and deaths

Tears of joy for Indians it seems, and sadly a terminal heart attack for one Sri Lanka supporter.

Team of the tournament

There's some tough selections when trying to work out the team of the tournament, but I've ended up going for a team with 9 of the 11 coming from the semi-finalists.

Honourable mentions for those that got edged out go to Murali, Ajantha Mendis, Ray Price, Lee, Malinga and Kemar Roach in the bowling department, ten Doeschate in the batting all-rounder department, and Tharanga, Trott, Jayawardene, Dhoni and Clarke as batsmen. In fact, how about this for a World Cup 2nd XI: Tharanga, Trott, Jayawardene, Clarke, Dhoni (c), ten Doeschate, Lee, Roach, Mendis, Price, Murali? Perhaps a bit of a long tail so you could potentially drop Lee and play Watson to open with Tharanga and drop the other batsmen down a slot, while still keeping a (lesser) bowling option.

1st XI:

Dilshan (SL)
Tendulkar (India)
Sangakkara (SL (c) - edges out Dhoni with an average of nearly double Dhoni's 48)
de Villiers (SA)
Yuvraj Singh (India)
Taylor (NZ)
Oram (NZ)
Afridi (Pakistan)
Khan (India)
Southee (NZ)
Tahir (SA)

3 from winners India, (surprisingly?) 3 from New Zealand, 2 from Sri Lanka, 2 from South Africa and 1 from Pakistan.

Any glaring omissions? Looking at it again I wonder if ten Doeschate should play ahead of Oram to lengthen the batting even more, given that the top 6 already includes two all-rounders who'll bowl plenty of overs in Yuvraj and Dilshan....

World Cup batting total runs list.
World Cup bowling total wickets list.

A great chase befitting World Champions

Congratulations to India who managed to take all that pressure on them and still put in a good performance in the final. And particularly to Dhoni who captained well throughout the tournament and stepped up with his batting when required. His decision to move to 5 above Yuvraj in the final - apparently made on the basis that Sri Lanka picked two (or three if you include Dilshan) off-spinners who would be more dangerous to left-handers, was inspired as it turned out.

However, there is no-one else as far as I know, who would have considered it as an option, with Dhoni's top score in the tournament being 34 and Yuvraj averaging in the 80s for the tournament coming into the final. He took a big risk and it came off, and he would have known the pressure he was under so you have to give him huge credit for that. He also took a risk playing Sreesanth (who bowled 8 overs at 6.5 without taking a wicket) - I and many others would have expected them to play Ashwin.

But it was Sri Lanka who unexpectedly weakened their team through strange selections. As an impartial observer, I'm gutted that Mathews got injured because I think the match would have been even closer, and Sri Lanka probably wouldn't have been tempted to change their team. I feel desperately sorry for Ajantha Mendis who bowled fantastically in the tournament to go at the least runs of any bowler - 3.14 - and then got left out of the final. Herath had a relatively poor tournament and you can see why the Sri Lankan's were tempted to bring in Randiv for him, putting right what many saw as a wrong in the original selection.

My man Kulasekara - who I would have brought in for Mathews - batted well, but bowled with too much width, demonstrating how hard it is to come into a match cold and play well. I also felt that he could have made a better attempt at catching Gambhir at long-off during the bowling powerplay and that could have been crucial. Perera did what we know he can do - hit the ball a long way and bowl relatively expensive medium pace. If they wanted to drop Silva and/or play Perera I think they needed to take the chance to bat Perera at 6 rather than play Kapugadera who hadn't played all tournament and has never been successful at international level.

How would a team of Tharanga, Dilshan, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Samaraweera, Perera, Kulasekara, Randiv, Malinga, Mendis, Murali have gone in the final? We'll never know. Personally, I'd have liked them to make just one change to replace Mathews - a side builds up morale and winning momentum through a tournament and then it's partially taken away for the final - it's surely poor selection? Given what they know now, I bet Sri Lanka would have picked Randiv instead of Fernando in their squad, given the pre-eminence of spinners in the tournament.

Overall, I think both sides over-thought things. India played Sreesanth ahead of Ashwin and changed their batting order on the basis of the team Sri Lanka picked. Sri Lanka changed 4 players for the final, only one of them enforced through injury, including dropping the tournament's most economical bowler. Just play your best side irrespective of the opposition!

But Dhoni deserves to bask in glory for now. The pressure on him was immense already before he promoted himself to 5, and even greater then. And he came through, showing immense guts to do so. Congratulations to Dhoni and India, worthy World Cup winners, even if - for the moment - they're still ranked only number 2 in the world in ODIs.

Surprising team selections

Amazing team selections from both teams, but particularly Sri Lanka. Sreesanth playing ahead of Ashwin is a surprise but far less than Sri Lanka leaving out both Herath and Mendis. I know there is a school of thought that India read Mendis easily but Mendis has been in great form and I can't believe they didn't back him to get the better of the Indian batsmen.

How Kapugedera got picked is beyond me. Perhaps he'll score a hundred and win Sri Lanka the game now. What will be interesting to see is how Kulasekera and Perera bowl as they haven't bowled competitively for a while, not to mention Randiv as this will be his first World Cup match. I feel very sorry for Herath and Mendis...but if Sri Lanka can win the match that will make up for it for them.

As well as team selections I also said that the toss would be vital so typical that there should be confusion! But there's more being made of it than necessary - Sangakkara won the original toss as well so nothing has changed apart from Martin Crowe being embarrassed for the second World Cup final in a row!

India's incentive

No, not to make it a fairy tale with Tendular scoring his hundredth hundred and winning the World Cup on home soil. In case you've missed it, 20 year-old Indian model Poonam Pandey has been making headlines in India after promising to go nude if India win the World Cup. All publicity is good publicity perhaps, but there are areas of India that are chronically conservative, so I'm not sure it was that sensible in career terms.

Interesting also to note at the end of the article that cricket is under fire for using leather in cricket balls rather than synthetic substances....

Team selection and the toss will be critical

With Angelo Mathews out it tips the World Cup final slightly in India's favour so I'd love to see Sri Lanka win the toss and bat first. The toss could be a vital contributor to the final result and if India win it and score 300+, life could get tough for Sri Lanka. It remains to be seen who will replace Mathews and whoever they pick their batting is much weakened....I think I'd go for Kulasekara who has a good recent record against India's much vaunted batted line up.

With Nehra out India will surely play Ashwin, which means they'll play what most see as they're strongest XI and both sides will go in with 3 spinners and some part-time spinners. There's still the chance that Sri Lanka will play 4 spinners plus part-timers, if they choose to play Randiv in place of Mathews of course.

Shaun Tait retires from ODIs

It appears that even ODIs are too long for Shaun Tait who has now retired. Over at King Cricket they have predicted his next retirement news....

Terrorists rounded up

Perhaps it will give the Sri Lankan's a little psychological boost to know that some of the terrorists that attacked them have been arrested....

The final most people wanted

India and Sri Lanka have made it through their semis, both relatively easily in the end despite some worries in their matches. So as predicted and as many people wanted, the two home nations in the knock out stages have made it through. Sri Lanka's middle order had to bat under pressure which has been rare in the World Cup, and India had to work hard for their 260 and bowl tightly to take their place in the final.

A lot has been made of Younis Khan and Misbah Ul-Haq's slow batting during Pakistan's chase. It certainly cost Pakistan dear because by the time Razzaq and Afridi came in the run rate was climbing, which meant they had to get going quickly. Having said that Razzaq, strangely promoted above Afridi for the first time in the tournament, was out playing defensively. It almost felt like Pakistan hadn't agreed amongst themselves how they wanted to go about the chase - was it a case of keeping wickets in hand and then looking at 100 off the last 10, as Younis and Misbah seemed to think, or did they want to stay with the rate or even ahead of it throughout, as Umar Akmal seemed to think? Only they can say, such were their confusing tactics but what we can say is that going from 3 an over to 9 is always going to be tricky, where as 5 an over to 7 might be more achievable.

In defence of Misbah, Younis and MS Dhoni in India's innings, batting in the middle order seems like a struggle in the sub-continent, a point made by Mickey Arthur when looking at South Africa's demise. That's why I think the fitness of Angelo Mathews is critical if Sri Lanka are to win the World Cup as I predicted. With Mathews at 7, Sri Lanka's batting looks very strong up to that point, allbeit with the tail starting at 8 with Malinga who averages only 8 in ODIs. Without Mathews the alternatives look worring with Perera the most likely to come in - he's got some quality and can hit the ball miles but an average of less than 15 tells you all you need to know about his batting, and he doesn't have a history of handling pressure at the top-level - he'll be 22 the day after the final.

The other option Sri Lanka have is to play Kulasekera, who can count himself as extremely unlucky not to make it into Sri Lanka's first choice XI. He would be in the side every time outside the sub-continent where it seems a minimum of 3 spinners are needed. With an average of 17 with the bat he doubles that of Malinga but he hardly strikes fear into the opposition, were he to come in at 7.

Perhaps this thinking is why Sri Lanka have called up Chaminda Vaas and Suraj Randiv in case Mathews and/or Murali don't recover from injury. Randiv is a given as he was incredibly unlucky not to be in the squad to start with and Sri Lanka will benefit from a little extra batting if he replaces Murali. But Vaas, despite his poor ODI average of 14, has been batting higher recently, notably opening for Northants in the T20 last season and averaging in the late 20s. Hardly setting the world alight but perhaps they are considering him at number 7 if Mathews isn't fit - it would be an amazing story if they did go back to him. Personally I'd have been going for Maharoof rather than Vaas.

It may seem strange that players might come in from outside the squad and play their only match in the final, but that's how I think it should be - I still have the same objection to limited squad numbers as I had at the start of the tournament.

Much as I want Murali to play, Randiv on the face of it is a quality replacement, where as Mathews would be a big loss with no obvious replacement. The destiny of the World Cup could rest on the fitness of someone who's not yet 24, rather than the man soon to turn 39 and the most successful wicket-taker the game has ever seen.

Dravid avoids World Cup euphoria

No doubt Rahul Dravid could have been at home in India earning loads of money for commentating or writing about the World Cup. Instead, he's left the country altogether to go and play for the MCC in Dubai and score the match-defining century that helped win the match for MCC. He'll be fighting hard for his international Test place but having seen Virat Kohli bat in the World Cup he could be struggling. Both Kohli and Raina are nipping at his heels but to me Kohli looks the classier player, especially in relation to Test cricket as he looks like he has the tighter technique. And of course Yuvraj has been revitalised by this World Cup.

An Indian Test line up of Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Tendulkar, Laxman, Yuvraj, Dhoni gives extra bowling options and would strike fear into all opposition bowling attacks....Dravid has his work cut out but he's going about fighting for his place in the right way.

Fantastic decision by Taufel

Taufel just gave Sehwag out LBW to a short left-arm over ball from Riaz. Quality decision - as Mike Atherton said on commentary the instinct is to assume that from left-arm over, short balls must pitch outside leg. This time Taufel knew different. It would be interesting to know if the umpires review the bowling actions of the two teams coming into the match to check how they tend to shape the ball and how wide of the crease they tend to go. Riaz on this occassion was very tight to the wicket.

On another note, there's been some criticism of Dhoni for batting first but whatever the result I think he's done the right thing. It's by all accounts a good batting track that will get slower as the match goes on which suggests batting first is a good idea, but equally it takes the pressure of the Indian batsmen. As it is the pressure will be on India's bowlers, but most importantly, Dhoni himself as captain of the side bowling second, and I think he's happy to take that role on.

Sri Lanka must be feeling the pressure

As you know I think the best two teams who should contest the final are India and Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka are no doubt favourites tomorrow. But I can't agree with the headline "Mismatch unless NZ can raise game"! New Zealand just beat South Africa pretty easily so I don't think they need to raise their game that much....they just need a bit of luck to go their way, as any short format game can go either way.

Sri Lanka may be worrying about Murali's fitness, but equally if he isn't fit they're likely to being in Kulasekera who is the 5th rated ODI bowler in the world - not a bad replacement.

But whatever team Sri Lanka pick, if New Zealand play as they did against South Africa it certainly won't be a mismatch - it'll make interesting viewing. I'm sure that given the media assertions of their superiority, including here at Cricket Burble, Sri Lanka will be sleeping a little uneasily tonight....

The alternative to Strauss - Stuart Broad???

As I said in a previous post, I think Strauss should carry on as England captain. And that's irrespective of whether he wants to try to carry on to the 2015 World Cup - even if he doesn't there's no ideal candidate to replace him right now.

Michael Vaughan has suggested that if England were to look past Alastair Cook, he thinks Stuart Broad should be considered. I struggle with that - a guy who is so petulant clearly has problems remaining emotionally detached as the skipper needs to. The old Bob Woolmer saying "Your heart's in the oven, your brain's in the fridge" is something completely alien to Broad. He may have captaincy potential eventually but, dare I say it, he's got a bit of maturing to do before he reaches that point.

You can see how Vaughan has ended up considering Broad though - who else is there exactly other than Cook, who currently doesn't get in the side? It's difficult to be able to tell from outside the changing room who has the respect of the other players and who is tactically astute. My guess is that they'd go to Ian Bell. I don't know if Graeme Swann has any captaincy credentials but it would be interesting to know if he even gets a thought given his care free attitude.

I hope for England's sake it doesn't become an issue and Strauss continues.

The World Cup final will be between...

...India v Sri Lanka. You heard it here first.

The shorter the format, the more likely the upset, but even so I find it hard to see either side losing in the semis. My hopes for the semis are that the India/Pakistan game concludes without crowd violence, and that Murali is rested if necessary so that he can get one last hurrah in the final.

Fingers crossed.

More of the same as England exit the World Cup

A few observations now England have gone out.

Strauss needs to continue as captain, despite speculation about his position. It would be different if he played Twenty20 but as he doesn't, hopefully he can use any Twenty20 time, miss County games and use the international rest periods to make sure he's physically and mentally fit to play and lead. His conservatism frustrates me, but he's still the best man for the job.

The administrator who was responsible for England's pre-World Cup schedule needs shooting. A long drawn out ODI series in alien conditions compared to what they faced in the sub-continent.

Prior isn't an England opener in any format.

Bell still flatters to deceive. If Bopara gets the same chances I'm sure he'll make more of them.

Trott is class, long may it continue.

KP has a low pain threshold.

England need Samit Patel to get fit. If Yuvraj can do it for India, so can Patel for England.

Anderson imploded - let's hope it was only temporary and time away from cricket and with his family sees him fresh and performing well at the start of the Test summer.

Swann can't win games by himself. And he should never ever bat above 8 in any circumstances.

Flower is Strauss' coaching double - fantastic work ethic and attitude, but a conservative thinker who struggles to adapt. England never went with more than two spinners despite the evidence of the success of spinners all around them. Dernbach instead of Rashid when it had become clear all countries needed to play at least 3 spinners?

Luke Wright isn't an England player outside of Twenty20, great attitude though he may have.

Paul Collingwood isn't an England player at all it seems, in any format, given recent selection. But his bowling - while hardly of the strike bowling variety - would have been superior to most that played the quarter-final, even if you ignore his batting and fielding. A bowling line up of Bresnan, Swann, Tremlett, Bopara, Tredwell, Wright wouldn't strike too much fear into a County batting line up, let alone one of the favourites for the World Cup, Sri Lanka.

Jack Iverson

Another book I read not so long ago was Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson. A truly incredible story of someone who turned up to his local cricket club in his 30s, started out in their 3rd XI, moved up to the 1st team, onto "proper" cricket, and then into the Australian Test side. And he didn't just make it into the side - he was the most threatening bowler, bowling with a style that is best described as individual, but equally might be loosely likened to Ajantha Mendis.

Not surprisingly his career was short-lived given his age, and he resumed a fairly anonymous life, allbeit one with glorious Ashes winning memories. But the sudden notoriety followed by relative anonymity appeared to be difficult for him to deal with and he committed suicide on my birthday. Hopefully it will be Jack Iverson's many international wickets that will come to mind annually each time I get a year older, rather than his final moments. I'd encourage you to read the book for yourselves if you haven't already....