Post Game Show: Blogiversary Edition

I'm not going to lie, I fell asleep during that live blog last night (I guess that would make it more of a dead blog, since no one showed up either *rim shot) but every so often, I keep getting woken up with announcers yelling "What a shot!" Turns out Taylor was going for 118 and I was sleeping through the whole thing (it was 65-2 when I went to bed) but in the end it turned out again that his effort was for not, because Bangladesh got some hot batting and ended up winning by scoring 222.

I would like to thank everyone who has read this little corner of the internet for the past year, whatever your reason, it's your eyes that keep me typing on this page, I know I've failed you lately in being timely, and probably even being good at writing, so if you're still around, it'd be nice to know, and hopefully this winter will be a time to improve my writing and maybe turn a few fans onto this game that I've fallen in love with myself.

Zimbabwae v Bangladesh ODI 5

This game is also technically being played on my Blogiversary (since it's already tomorrow over there)


Links to watch:

http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/index

Invalidating your excuse with my mighty typing skills

Alright, so we're gonna try a live blog again. The video goes live at 9:25 Eastern tonight, so I'm gonna start the liveblog at 9:10, if no one is here by 10, I'm shutting it down again. It will be the last ODI between Bangladesh and Zimbabwae. Hope to see you there.

I'm back

And now that I'm back, there is Cricket on to be watched:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bangladesh-vs-zimabwe

Bangladesh vs Zimbabwae ODI, (and while we're at it let's welcome back Zimbabwae) I'll see if I can get a Cover It Live up, but the Blog will be open for now if anyone is around.

What's Next Dave Richardson? The BCS?

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/current/story/410448.html

Dave Richardson and Adam Gilchrist would like to see I-A and I-AA Test Cricket (suck it, bowl and playoff divisions). The feel that people stopped watching the cornerstone of the game is that the games are no longer competitive enough, because there are too many bad teams playing not enough good teams. Ignoring the fact that the sport is biased towards India and England (and occsionally Austraila, except when they piss it away like at the 20/20 Worlds), I don't see how keeping the "bad" teams away from the "good" teams would improve the sport at all. If England wants to no longer play Zimbabwae that's fine, but how do you know you're not killing the sport in Zimbabwae because you're taking away showing those people what they could become?

I mean let's just look at what the two divisions would probably look like (these are based entirely on my assumptions, and Test Results as of May 18, 2009)

I-A:
1) Austrailia
2) South Africa
3) England
4) India
5) Whoever is currently hotter of Pakistan and Sri Lanka

I-AA
1) Whoever is cooler of Sri Lanka and Pakistan
2) The West Indies
3) New Zealand
4) Bangladesh
5) Zimbabwae

There are only 10 teams to choose from in the entire world, and instead of trying to level the playing field and expanding the oppertunities to more teams in the world, they would rather narrow it down and keep the teams they don't like out of their "good game". It's a disgrace and a joke and I hope it never comes to fruition.

Alright I'll say it, I'm a bad blogger, it's been exactly three weeks since my last post, and here we are in the middle of the international tournament of the year (since we're in a down year for the ODI tournaments) the ICC World Twenty20 Championship (..of the World). I want to mix things up a little, so lets try this in FAQ form.


Q: Who qualified for the tournament?
A: The top ten teams in the ICC's world rankings, plus the top two finishers from the Qualifying Tournament. However, because it is a corrupt political entity, Zimbabwae was forced out of the tournament. and was replaced by the third place finisher in the Qualifying Tournament. This is how they're ranked.

1) India
2) Pakistan
3) Austrailia
4) New Zealand
5) South Africa
6) Sri Lanka
7) England
8) Bangladesh
9) Ireland
10) Netherlands
11) West Indies
12) Scotland

Q: Wait, 12 teams, how do you set up a single elimination tournament that way?
A: You don't. Instead, they have four pool groups each consisting of one first tier, one second tier, and one third tier team. You go by ranking. So you get four groups that look like this:

1-8-9
2-7-10
3-6-11
4-5-12

Q: What have we missed so far?
A: So far you've missed the pool play I just mentioned.

Q: Any Suprises?
A: Austrailia went quietly into the night losing to the West Indies 172-169 (in a match where WI only sent 5 batsmen to the stumps), and losing to Sri Lanka 160-159 (this time only 6 Batsmen for SL). The Netherlands were elimnated in heartbreaking fashion when they were only able to put up 93 runs against Pakistan to allow England to move on to the Super Eight.

(and let it be stated here that I am glad for Bloggers autosave feature that allowed this to still be here when my computer shut down on me)

Q: Super Eight? What's that?
A: The Super Eight is the second round of the competition and it started today (South Africa 114-England 111, and New Zealand 198-Ireland 115 for those keeping track at home) It is two groups of four (the first and second place finishers from the four opening round pools. Each plays the other three in the pool, and the top two from each pool move onto the semi-finals.

Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If you want to learn about cricket, 20/20 is probably the best way to do it, it's the shortest game, has the fasting pacing, and is the only version of the sport played at night. If you've gotten into the sport at all through this, first off that's nice, cause hey, I've accomplished something. Second, you might want to take the next step up, and learn about Net Run Rate, which is the first tie-breaking tool, and will save you a lot of confusion (if you're good at math). Finally, enjoy the games! They're in England, so you can have cricket with your breakfast (Game one Tomorrow starts at 6:30 EDT, and Game two starts at 7:30 PDT, so there are options for everyone.)

Okay okay, so it took a couple of days (and a campy coming of age movie, and an ongoing snowstorm) but I'm back on my feet, so we're ready to dive back into this.

Last Weekend New Zealand and the West Indies got washed out enough that they ended in a tie. This week is whole different story, as apparently Chanderpaul has lit his bat on fire and is simply dominiating the competition and going for 400 RUNS He's sitting off the stumps on 100, as WI is currently 258/6 after 91 overs. To top it off, they are still in their first innings, so it looks like the rout is on, and New Zealand learned nothing from the beat down they took at the hands of Austrailia three weeks ago..

In India, India is on their 1st innings as well, after 72 overs and the end of day one they're going at 179/1, but it is an incredibly slow 179, as the batsmen have combined to see 400 bowls between them, which I'm sure is making for miserable spectating.

Austrailia is picking up right where it left off three weeks ago with New Zealand, only this weekend's whipping boy is South Africa. Austrailia currently has a 322 run lead, and has 3 wickets in hand still in the Second innings, so it's probably all over but the crying for that one.

All of these matches will carry on into the weekend, and after that, it will pretty much wrap things up for the year (next weekend will see the second Test for Austrailia-South Africa, and the start of a Bangladesh-Sri Lanka series, and if you've gotten bored with your toys, you can spend a few hours on the 26th with New Zealand and the West Indies again as they play a 20/20 to wrap up there year) Hopefully we'll have a year in review (that we weren't in exsistance for most of) up sometime between Christmas and the New Year.