A great day for the Irish!

[Richard]

So you find the prospect of Ireland v Sri Lanka more enticing than Pakistan v Sri Lanka?

I sure don't.

 

[Beleg]

I concur with Goughy completely. This is shaping up to be an amazing tournament.

 

[Kriketer]

"it's a shame how many people will be drawing satisfaction from the elimination of those nasty cheating Pakistanis"

Am I reading it wrong or you typed it wrong.

 

[DCC_legend]

Woah what happened? Mass genocide?

yea, it was quite unlucky for most tbh.

 

[DCC_legend]

So you find the prospect of Ireland v Sri Lanka more enticing than Pakistan v Sri Lanka?

I sure don't.

well if ireland play the way there playing atm, it could turn out to be a classic match. On the other hand, if sri lanka just rip throught them.....it could be a bit of a bore.

 

[The Baconator]

"it's a shame how many people will be drawing satisfaction from the elimination of those nasty cheating Pakistanis"

Am I reading it wrong or you typed it wrong.

The smilie indicates sarcasm on his part I think.

 

[Prince EWS]

So... if someone were to say to you that it's Pakistan vs Sri Lanka tomorrow or Ireland vs Sri Lanka tomorrow (before this game), which would you expect to be the closest?

I wouldn't expect either game to be particularly close. Obviously I'd expect the Pakistan game to be closer, but I'd expect neither to be close enough to produce a decent spectacle and hence it really would not matter which team qualified. I did tip Ireland to beat Pakistan after all so I clearly don't rate Pakistan's squad and form at the present time.

 

[Richard]

"it's a shame how many people will be drawing satisfaction from the elimination of those nasty cheating Pakistanis"

Am I reading it wrong or you typed it wrong.

You missed the sarcasm in the "those nasty cheating Pakistanis".

That's the only problem.

I despise and detest the fact that people hold this view. I certainly do not hold it myself.

 

[Richard]

I wouldn't expect either game to be particularly close. Obviously I'd expect the Pakistan game to be closer, but I'd expect neither to be close enough to produce a decent spectacle and hence it really would not matter which team qualified. I did tip Ireland to beat Pakistan after all so I clearly don't rate Pakistan's squad and form at the present time.

You seriously tipped Ireland to win?

Did you watch the C&G Trophy last season at all? Did you even note what happened?

That'd be like tipping Pakistan to tour England, play all 18 counties and lose every single game, maybe bar 1 or 2.

Pakistan-Sri Lanka is always, always more likely to be a contest than Ireland-Sri Lanka. Always. And hence the fact that Ireland have qualified means the tournament is going to be lopsided.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

You seriously tipped Ireland to win?

Did you watch the C&G Trophy last season at all? Did you even note what happened?

Never mind that the C&G Trophy team contained about half the players that turned out today...

 

[Richard]

...

 

[Prince EWS]

You seriously tipped Ireland to win?

Did you watch the C&G Trophy last season at all? Did you even note what happened?

That'd be like tipping Pakistan to tour England, play all 18 counties and lose every single game, maybe bar 1 or 2.

Pakistan-Sri Lanka is always, always more likely to be a contest than Ireland-Sri Lanka. Always. And hence the fact that Ireland have qualified means the tournament is going to be lopsided.

Not only did I tip Ireland to win, but I put $20 on them making the Super 8 stage and a further $25 on Pakistan missing it. And you can hardly criticise my tip on the basis on C&G Trophy games because they won the match. If a prediction comes true, it is a good one, regardless of any other factors. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Ireland have quite a few players in this WC squad who didn't play in their C&G Trophy side.

I was that dissapointed in Pakistan leading up the tournament that I was confident that any side with a few decent first class cricketers and some general cricket experience and determination could beat them - Ireland fitted the bill perfectly.

Pakistan-Sri Lanka wouldn't be competitive IMO. Ireland-Sri Lanka will probably be even less competitive, but if the former wasn't going to be competitive anyway, there is little harm in having the latter.

 

[Richard]

It's not. A prediction is a good one based on what it's based on. If someone said Australia were going to lose to Holland would that be a good prediction? No, it'd be insane, and if it did happen it'd still have been an insane prediction. Hindsight has no place in massive predictions like Ireland beating Pakistan.

There was nothing to suggest Ireland had a cat-in-hell's chance. Any more than Holland did against South Africa.

This game WAS a shock. A major shock. Possibly the biggest shock in cricket history. That doesn't mean putting a bet on was a bad idea - if you want to pay your money and take your chance, that's your choice.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

...

Ireland in May:

Dominick Joyce
Jeremy Bray (in)
Eoin Morgan (in)
Andre Botha (in)
Shahid Afridi (not good enough for opposition)
Peter Gillespie
Kyle McCallan (in)
Trent Johnston (in)
Dave Langford-Smith (in)
Saqlain Mushtaq (not good enough for beaten opposition)
Adrian McCoubrey

Six of 11 is, amazingly, roughly one half. (Especially when those players who didn't play in May, Rankin, the O'Briens, Porterfield, have all played huge parts in the Ireland victory so far.)

And don't start saying that Afridi and Saqlain strengthened the team - because Saqlain cost 5.27 an over and Afridi averaged 25.

 

[Richard]

Afridi could possibly have made all the difference had he not been banned... it's just the sort of game where he might pull-off of those miracles that happens every time he performs.

How were these replacements so much better than those who played in May? Several have played county cricket and come-up short.

 

[Prince EWS]

It's not. A prediction is a good one based on what it's based on. If someone said Australia were going to lose to Holland would that be a good prediction? No, it'd be insane, and if it did happen it'd still have been an insane prediction. Hindsight has no place in massive predictions like Ireland beating Pakistan.

There was nothing to suggest Ireland had a cat-in-hell's chance. Any more than Holland did against South Africa.

This game WAS a shock. A major shock. Possibly the biggest shock in cricket history. That doesn't mean putting a bet on was a bad idea - if you want to pay your money and take your chance, that's your choice.

It was quite obviously a good prediction because it came true. You can apply all the logic you like before the game, but obviously it isn't foolproof and people will see things differently to you. I saw Pakistan's completely dire form and the absence of several of their players as a much bigger concern than Ireland's poor showing in an English domestic competition - as it turned out, Pakistan's weaknesses outweighed Ireland's and Ireland won the game.

Once the result occurs, you can't then simply continue to stand by your pre-match predictions by simply dismissing the result and saying it shouldn't have happened. Your predictions have be accountable to practical application and answerable to the results that occur or there is little sense in even making them.

You can have as much evidence as you like to suggest it was a bad prediction, but the fact that Ireland won the game is the greatest piece of evidence one can provide to back up a prediction - it's practical occurance. You can't really argue that.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Afridi could possibly have made all the difference had he not been banned... it's just the sort of game where he might pull-off of those miracles that happens every time he performs.

How were these replacements so much better than those who played in May? Several have played county cricket and come-up short.

Tell you what. I'm not going to bother with this any more. On my final note, O'Brien averages a reasonably okay 29 in England FC, while Rankin's about 20 years old and has been given about one game for Derbyshire, clearly enough to write him off.

I bet, though, that if you were 20 years older and had got into cricket in 1980, you still wouldn't have accepted that bringing Sri Lanka into the world cricket fold in 1982 was a roundly good idea. You would have laughed the efforts of Sri Lanka against India in the 79 World Cup as a one-off. You would have said that Gamini Goonasekara was not of first-class standard. You would have written off Ranatunga and Dias as non-Test class and bemoaned the lack of any kind of decent seamers, and not understood why on earth they were playing Tests until they were "ready" (which would have been, if the ICC had followed your advice in 1980, never, since in all likelihood Atapattu, Jayasuriya et al would not have received the coaching they got now, or would have switched to other sports because cricket was not a sustainable way of living in that country).

You can't spread a sport through games with 'A' teams from other countries; although it might be slightly better for the development of that crop of players, no one will watch, and no one will be inspired to take up the sport, there will be no money for that crop of players, and eventually money will seep in and cause either defections to other countries, to other sports, or to the working life.

 

[Richard]

Cricket has been played in Ireland for about as long as it's been played anywhere in The British Isles, you know.

Ireland is not a separate cricketing country.

You don't know what I'd have done were I in said situation, either - it's nothing but supposition. I'm surprised at you, all in all.

 

[Richard]

It was quite obviously a good prediction because it came true. You can apply all the logic you like before the game, but obviously it isn't foolproof and people will see things differently to you. I saw Pakistan's completely dire form and the absence of several of their players as a much bigger concern than Ireland's poor showing in an English domestic competition - as it turned out, Pakistan's weaknesses outweighed Ireland's and Ireland won the game.

Once the result occurs, you can't then simply continue to stand by your pre-match predictions by simply dismissing the result and saying it shouldn't have happened. Your predictions have be accountable to practical application and answerable to the results that occur or there is little sense in even making them.

You can have as much evidence as you like to suggest it was a bad prediction, but the fact that Ireland won the game is the greatest piece of evidence one can provide to back up a prediction - it's practical occurance. You can't really argue that.

Your predictions have to be accountable to what was available at the time.

Not what's become available after they were made.

 

[Prince EWS]

Your predictions have to be accountable to what was available at the time.

Not what's become available after they were made.

Predictions are about correctly tipping what will occur in the future, not saying who should statistically win on paper.

The single greatest piece of evidence someone can provide to back up their prediction is the correctly predicted result.

Your prediction of Pakistan winning was a poor one.