The main reason I'm looking forward to this tournament

[BoyBrumby]

Last one was a decent tournament tbf

Barely remember anything about it, tbh. They all kinda blur into one.

 

[pasag]

Barely remember anything about it, tbh. They all kinda blur into one.

Low scoring, Watto was quite good, dew was a big factor, Australia won, Martyn pushed the BCCI chief off the presentation stage. All you need to know tbh.

 

[GIMH]

I did no such thing!!!

 

[Cruxdude]

I have some great memories of the initial few tournaments. The first one in Dhaka was pretty good. Tendulkar got Australia out of the cup. WI kicked both India and Pakistan out and then lost to SA in finals. There was also a NZ-Zim thriller with Harris hitting the last ball from Neil Johnson for a four and winning it.

The second one was also pretty good. Announced Yuvraj and Zaheer to the world. India defeated Australia and SA and lost to NZ (Cairns). Remember cursing Ganguly for running Tendulkar out after a great first wicket partnership in the finals.

The one in SriLanka, again Inida did well and I loved it. The match against SA was a heart-stopper. If someone has links for video highlights of that game do put them up. It was a special match for India and yet again SA choked.

After that India has been pretty poor at them and I don't remember much about them. Lost to Pakistan. That was the worst of it.

 

[_Ed_]

Keen for it myself

Definitely.

Matches aren't at an ideal time for us in NZ though.

 

[four_or_six]

Barely remember anything about it, tbh. They all kinda blur into one.

Watson bounced out Flintoff, and I cheered, and then I felt bad about it for ages.

 

[GIMH]

Welcome to my ignore list

 

[Pratters]

Pretty meh on the whole thing, I have to say.

Even leaving aside that it's 50 overs and I'm English, I've never really seen the point of a "world cup but not world cup" for cricket when it already has an actual world cup.

I agree in principle with Brumby. Always had the feeling the tournament was just to fill the coffers and to give ICC tournaments more air space. Will still watch a lot of it as I like the idea of competitive cricket in RSA.

Also, agree with the point Jungle Jumbo raised - it wont settle that many scores for mine.

As an aside, the real way of settling scores are the ODI rankings. Dhoni mentioned how India fielded badly in the final and it wasn't representative of the second best side in the world (their rank even though they won the final). If the difference is a few points, you can't say which the best team is but when the distance is a bit more than little, the best team would be the one consistently winning more major ODI tournaments and series. So the one winning the Champions Trophy wont be the best team but if they follow it up with a couple of series wins against near equals, it means they are performing consistently and are no. 1. Sri Lanka won the world cup in '96 but they were poorer compared to South Africa post the world cup. So there wasn't a conclusive no. 1 in the period though I have seen some Aussies claim that they were the no. 1 odi team (/flame bait).

RSA in the 90s is an interesting case though. They were easily the best ODI team for 3-5 years but didn't win major tournaments. If you don't win major tournaments, and another team is winning them, there can be a valid argument that the team winning the most are not the best team.

This I believe is a major flaw in the rankings (though I don't know the nitty gritties of how the rankings function) - you have to give more importance to winning more tournaments and I don't think the current one does. India lost a meaningless round robin game to Sri Lanka and became no. 1 in the world but winning against them back in the final didn't give them back the ranking.

 

[Pothas]

It is pointless but since getting Sky on my computer I have been watching a lot of cricket so I expect I will watch a fair amount of this, looking forward to seeing other sides but would certainly not be devesated by an early exit for England, have watched quite enough of this side over the last couple of weeks.

 

[four_or_six]

Welcome to my ignore list

I did feel bad about it!

I find it harder to care how we do in ODIs, I just enjoy watching the cricket. Perhaps it's because we're so crap at it.

 

[honestbharani]

Agree with the OP.

 

[Faisal1985]

I know the tournament gets a lot of slack as a money hungry venture only existing to fill the ICC coffers. That aisde, the past one was one of my favourite tournaments and the best thing about it is the lack of minnows.

However, the best thing about it will be the settling for now, hopefully, who is the number 1 side in the world (a fully fit India, IMO), how far Australia have fallen and generally seperating the boys from the men with a heap of congested sides that are pretty equal on paper. It comes at a great time where the cricket foodchain is a bit unclear and hopefully we'll see many questions answered.

Happy to be the only person in the world watching, tbh.

Wouldn't you consider a second choice WI a minnow....???

 

[Faisal1985]

TBH, I'm sick of watching the nth major tournament being hosted in South Africa. Nothing personal, but surely the 7 other nations could pull up their socks and do some serious talking at the ICC meetings? When was the last time Australia or New Zealand hosted a major tournament?

May be its because a lot of South Asian's can afford to go to SA but not Australia and NZ. Hence, the ICC is making more revenue and SA might have better crowds then Australia or NZ.....don't know the numbers...but that would be a logical reason....WI was a disaster during 2007 WC.....

 

[andyc]

May be its because a lot of South Asian's can afford to go to SA but not Australia and NZ. Hence, the ICC is making more revenue and SA might have better crowds then Australia or NZ.....don't know the numbers...but that would be a logical reason....WI was a disaster during 2007 WC.....

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering Australian crowds are always pretty good, and that Australia really isn't that far from the subcontinent.

 

[social]

Only thing I'm looking forward to is seeing how the PR hacks back-track now that Oz is once again the No.1 ODI team in the world and not SA

 

[Naumaan]

i'm looking forward for this tournament is cuz we don't get to watch Pakistan play
so it's so exciting

 

[Uppercut]

The main reason I'm looking forward to this tournament is because England have to try and play Ajantha Mendis.

 

[Jarquis]

The main reason I'm looking forward to this tournament is because England have to try and play Ajantha Mendis.

Nah we have Strauss and his reverse sweep, Shah and his wristy flicks and supposedly Morgan's super unorothodox technique as well as a nudger and nurdler in the shape of Collingwood. We'll do fine

 

[Scaly piscine]

May be its because a lot of South Asian's can afford to go to SA but not Australia and NZ. Hence, the ICC is making more revenue and SA might have better crowds then Australia or NZ.....don't know the numbers...but that would be a logical reason....WI was a disaster during 2007 WC.....

Nah.

SA is a much tougher market for games than a few other countries. Tickets are cheaper and games less well attended. However from a commercial perspective a huge proportion of the revenue will be coming from TV anyway - both day and day/night games are pretty good times for the Asian market.

 

[honestbharani]

Nah we have Strauss and his reverse sweep, Shah and his wristy flicks and supposedly Morgan's super unorothodox technique as well as a nudger and nurdler in the shape of Collingwood. We'll do fine

Wow.. Jest turned into reality there..



Try more such posts, mate.