A Tale of Upsets
The ICC World Twenty20 2009 Tournament has been quite a spectacle to watch so far. One asset of this tournament that makes it so fascinating to watch are the upsets. Unlike the older formats (that is, test and ODI), the Twenty20 format is so fast and action-packed that
“Anything can happen…”
What better to kick off the twenty20 tournament than to have the hosts upset by an associate side. That’s right, England were beaten in a last ball thriller by the Netherlands. Wright’s superb 49-ball 71 was negated by Doeschate’s 2 – 35 and Grooth nice 30-ball 49 cameo. It was great to see how much this game meant for the Netherlands, as they all rushed out into the middle in celebration after the last ball win. It was indeed a real and successful wake-up call as England have not looked back, defeat last year’s champions, India and Pakistan. Read more
The Theatre of the Absurd
There is something no right about the Indian Premier League Season 2 2009. Part-timers are taking hattricks, teams are losing from just winning positions, teams are winning from impossible situations and teams at the top of the (points) table are going down to teams ranked below them…
“THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD”
Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj Singh are two part time bowlers and hardly bowl for India. Yet they are the only two bowlers in this tournament to have taken hattricks. Another part-timer who has taken a decent bag of wickets is Suresh Raina. He has hardly bowled for India and has one career wicket to his name in all forms of cricket for India. Notice that all these part-timers are Indian – bizarre! Here are their statistics with the ball in this tournament (courtesy of cricinfo): 
Another interesting aspect of the IPL was teams either losing the game from just a commanding position or winning from near impossible situations.
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From one Spectacle to Another – ICC World Twenty20 2009 Preview
With the end to the second season of the Indian Premier League, another exciting tournament takes its place in the ICC World Twenty20. The fast-growing rise in popularity in the Twenty20 format is what makes this tournament one of the most exciting for the year. In a sense, it is just like the IPL except players will be playing for their own countries, meaning players will be more passionate and determined to take their countries to victory.
Here are the prospects of the test-playing nations:
New Zealand will be in high spirits after derailing the best Twenty20 team in the world in India. However, it was in New Zealand and India did not have any warm up games prior to those matches. Still, New Zealand will have the confidence and belief that they can do better than the last tournament (’just’ making the semi finals). McCullum’s nightmare as Kolkata captain finally ends when he plays under a more experienced and better captain in Vettori. Both players are pivotal to their team’s success.
Prediction: Should make the semi finals. Faultless and perfect cricket may get them further. 4th Read more
