Sport Twenty20.

[leviathane]

So anyone else watching this? Really enjoy this due to the playing field atm is so even. Anyone can be the best on their day. Even though i'd love to see Aus win it I can't see us doing it.

 

[Aoami]

We'll win. The loss again holland was us hustling everyone. if australia win i'll cry and slap a picture of captain **** ponting

 

[Aoami]

We're smacking seven shades of shit out of pakistan... once again the england side show they can't perform until the pressure is on.

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

are we talking about cricket or the current state of the british army's efforts in northern pakistan

 

[Aoami]

Just the Cricket.

 

[leviathane]

hence why there is a sport tag in the title.

 

[ilaya]

now i absolutely love test cricket.. not a fan of the 1 day stuff... but.. this is just brilliant stuff!!

holland beating england from the last ball.... scotland making new zealand put out all the stops... chris gayle's innings v the aussies... and now england completely tonking pakistan!!

i really can see this form of the game taking off in the americas and mainland europe. its got everything. skill, massive hitting, crazy runs...!! brilliant!

 

[Ch3tan]

We're smacking seven shades of shit out of pakistan... once again the england side show they can't perform until the pressure is on.

While I enjoyed our batting performance, there were two sides to this story. We were not playing a good side, Pakistans fielding was abysmal, look at the amount of wides and no balls, look at the amount of boundries we got. They were simply awful. When it was their turn to bat, knowing the target they had to chase, and the risk of rain forcing the d/l rule, did they do the only sensible thing and go hell for leather and trust in their middle order to save them if they had a few early outs? No.

We will still suffer against a better team, we have not had a test yet. SA will be a true test of whether we can go all the way or not.

 

[Aoami]

While I enjoyed our batting performance, there were two sides to this story. We were not playing a good side, Pakistans fielding was abysmal, look at the amount of wides and no balls, look at the amount of boundries we got. They were simply awful. When it was their turn to bat, knowing the target they had to chase, and the risk of rain forcing the d/l rule, did they do the only sensible thing and go hell for leather and trust in their middle order to save them if they had a few early outs? No.

We will still suffer against a better team, we have not had a test yet. SA will be a true test of whether we can go all the way or not.

That's not strictly true. England have always struggled early on, in all forms of the game. We never win the first test match, the first ODI, and always struggle in the early stages of tournaments.

The Pakistan side are a team tailor made for Twenty20. They've had good warm up, in a 50 over tournament and ODI series against the Aussies, so they're not out of practice. You can't call a team with the likes of Afridi, Malik, Misbah, Gul and Tanvir a bad Twenty20 side. We batted well, we fielded well and we bowled well. We'll be much better than we were against Holland when we face up to the big sides, and we're good enough to win this. Anderson, Broad and Swann are three of the best one day bowlers around atm, Pietersen, Collingwood and Wright are top 20-20 batsmen, and Bopara is in the form of his (albeit short international) life.

If you want me to explain the pro's and cons of all the other teams i'd be happy to.

 

[Ch3tan]

I'm not saying Pakistan are a bad team; I am well aware of the talent there. What I said is that they played awfully, they made the wrong decisions, and their fielding was ineffective at best.

 

[Uara]

What I'm noticing is the umpires being incredibly harsh with some of their wide decisions. There were a couplen yesterday off Luke Wright when the Pakistani backed away from an offstump ball and it was called a wide. Crazy if you ask me!

Relating to the cricket itself, with Pietersen back in the team it felt like the team had more purpose after the Holland display. With Adil at least showing his worth. Given time I can see him becoming very useful, just a shame he didnt manage to get a wicket yesterday!

 

[Chronictank]

I'm not saying Pakistan are a bad team; I am well aware of the talent there. What I said is that they played awfully, they made the wrong decisions, and their fielding was ineffective at best.

They haven't played a competative game (because of the whole taliban thing) so they are going into this competition cold, no idea why they were booked as favorites


I couldn't understand the rationale behind the batting, chasing a big target they were playing as if it was a 1day rather than 20 overs

 

[Vladamir]

Caught some of the Scotland - SA game yesterday, which was comprehensive to say the least.

It did have this beauty in it though

YouTube - KJ Coetzer's Catch - Scotland Vs South Africa

 

[leviathane]

lol awesome.

 

[Uara]

Yeah thats a beauty of a catch!

 

[Aoami]

They haven't played a competative game (because of the whole taliban thing) so they are going into this competition cold, no idea why they were booked as favorites


I couldn't understand the rationale behind the batting, chasing a big target they were playing as if it was a 1day rather than 20 overs

wrong.

edit - and half their players played IPL.

 

[Uara]

They haven't played a competative game (because of the whole taliban thing) so they are going into this competition cold, no idea why they were booked as favorites


I couldn't understand the rationale behind the batting, chasing a big target they were playing as if it was a 1day rather than 20 overs

They beat Australia recently in a 2020 match at Abu Dhabi or wherever they're playnig matches atm, they do have some very powerful hitters in the side.

I'm interested to see Ireland-Bangladesh today (well listen to it) see how that goes.

 

[Aoami]

Ireland are definitely capable of beating Bangladesh, should be a good game

 

[Uara]

Ireland are definitely capable of beating Bangladesh, should be a good game

Oh yes most definitely, im hoping Ireland get test status sometime soon. They damn well deserve it after being top of the associate members for a fair while!

 

[Chronictank]

wrong.

edit - and half their players played IPL.

IPL doesn't matter as they dont play as the Pakistan Team
The Australia game was part of the Twenty20 internationals

Pakistan have always had a couple of players capable of creating magic but its fielding where you see how well prepared a team is and in the Aussie game bar a couple of people on the whole they were pretty average
In the England game they were just poor in every area, they dont seem to gel at all and in some instances it looked like they just couldnt be bothered

 

[Aoami]

IPL doesn't matter as they dont play as the Pakistan Team
The Australia game was part of the Twenty20 internationals

Pakistan have always had a couple of players capable of creating magic but its fielding where you see how well prepared a team is and in the Aussie game bar a couple of people on the whole they were pretty average
In the England game they were just poor in every area, they dont seem to gel at all and in some instances it looked like they just couldnt be bothered

Pakistan have had no less warm up than anyone else. If fielding is where you see how well a team is prepared, how come West Indies, shoddy as hell in the field, destroyed a well polished Australian unit? (all though how seriously Ponting takes 20-20 is still debatable). Pakistan take 20-20 cricket very seriously (runners up in 2007) and the loss against England will have hurt them. All I can say for Pakistan is that they're tempremental, no matter how well prepared they are. They had an off day yesterday, but I feel the reason for that is because England played so well and they didn't deal with the pressure very well. So hats off to England for that.

It's become fashionable to put down the England cricket team, even if they storm to victory they're still not good enough.

 

[leviathane]

Ye us aussie's aren't really that great at T20 for some reason. We field pretty much our regular side which probly is our downfall. Need to bring in players who specialise in T20.

 

[Chronictank]

Pakistan have had no less warm up than anyone else.

Australia : 28 fixtures not including Twenty20 Games
Pakistan: 10 fixtures + 2 half matches due to cancellations not including Twenty20 Games

If fielding is where you see how well a team is prepared, how come West Indies, shoddy as hell in the field

West Indies are traditionally shoddy in the field, we on the other hand were discussing usually competant in the field teams.
But even then west indies had more cohesion between their platers than pakistan in the latest games, a sign of a non-match fit team

 

[leviathane]

thing i noticed about pakistan was it all seemed like a joke to them, all the fielding errors they just had a lil giggle about it. Meanwhile the bowler suffers.
the Windies had some great luck with Gayle though to be fair, he on his day is an outstanding batsman.

 

[Aoami]

Australia : 28 fixtures not including Twenty20 Games
Pakistan: 10 fixtures + 2 half matches due to cancellations not including Twenty20 Games

What relevance does that statistic have? The last series the two played in was against each other, that's the same amount of prep for a compition as far as i'm concerned.

This is England's T20 specialist team. How much practice have they had together to get cohesion? 2 games? 3 games?

 

[Chronictank]

What relevance does that statistic have? The last series the two played in was against each other, that's the same amount of prep for a compition as far as i'm concerned.

This is England's T20 specialist team. How much practice have they had together to get cohesion? 2 games? 3 games?

We will have to agree to disagree, i think that match fitness extends beyond T20 games you obviously don't

 

[Aoami]

We will have to agree to disagree, i think that match fitness extends beyond T20 games you obviously don't

It's Cricket ffs not Rugby, 'match fitness' shouldn't be an issue. In terms of team cohesion, all teams are on a fairly equal level because of the T20 specialists in the team only for this forum, and the small amout of time they get to play together as a team. The only team that are excluded from this are Australia because they play the same damned team for anything and just shuffle the order about a bit.

 

[Ch3tan]

I do not understand what you are arguing Aoami? If you are saying Pakistan were on form and England beat them, then it clearly is not true. If you are saying Pakistan were awful and England were great then it is difficult to prove. Most competent teams look good playing against a poor opposition (Just look at Holland vs us). All I am saying is that we will not know how good England can be this tournament until they face a real test, and Pakistan was not it -it could have been, but they are off form, and they HAVE suffered from not playing as much cricket as a team as others. Even if you do not buy that is the reason for their form, you cannot deny they were awful yesterday.


On a different topic, I still think the Aussies will fire themselves up and win this.

 

[Aoami]

I do not understand what you are arguing Aoami? If you are saying Pakistan were on form and England beat them, then it clearly is not true. If you are saying Pakistan were awful and England were great then it is difficult to prove. Most competent teams look good playing against a poor opposition (Just look at Holland vs us). All I am saying is that we will not know how good England can be this tournament until they face a real test, and Pakistan was not it -it could have been, but they are off form, and they HAVE suffered from not playing as much cricket as a team as others. Even if you do not buy that is the reason for their form, you cannot deny they were awful yesterday.


On a different topic, I still think the Aussies will fire themselves up and win this.

I don't think they fielded that badly. 3 dropped catches (bad, but no worse than WI agaist Aus, and pakistan have never been renowned for their fielding), 1 outstanding catch from Malik, a couple of near miss run outs after some good work. England batted well for a change.

The batting was shoddy, but what do you expect from a line up that includes the likes of Afridi and Misbah... outstanding on their day, useless on their bad ones.

They may have had a bit of an off day, but thats 20-20 for you, it's unpredictable. Form goes out of the door, theres not time for things like form to come into the equation. 20-20 is all about unpredictability, hence things like holland v england happen.

 

[Ch3tan]

Our batting was good, but as for their fielding, what about all the no- balls and wides? The lack of cover in the areas we hit the ball to consistently, there seemed to be no effort from the Pakistan team to stop boundries.