Group A: Australia, England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka

[sifter132]

I guess the selectors thought Marsh was the better batsmen between he and Maxwell, and with Clarke out they needed more batting. Makes it silly to think though, that they've picked 3 all-rounders when they only want to play 1, and no specialist backup batsman. When Watson was injured 3 months ago that might have seemed a reasonable idea, but it looks dumb now.

And yes, I'd love to see someone come in and play with a bit of intent. At the moment the batsmen are too worried about building a big innings, it leads to them either being too cautious (Hughes), or desperately trying to break the shackles and get going (Warner).

 

[Owzat]

Shame the ball is dominating the kiwi-lanka game, hopefully Sangakkara can stay the distance and lead them to a total which might make a game of it. Still over 20 overs left, reckon they'd need at least 180 to make a fist of it

 

[crazyrahul]

NZL is choking again. Hope McCullum Brothers will make them through.

Srilanka is fighting hard but surely they are missing Senanayake here.
Malinga you beauty, just awesome bowling !!!

 

[MUFC1987]

Nothing better than seeing a batsman completely beaten. Superb stuff from Malinga.

 

[Ahmad94]

Too little runs left. Well bowled Malinga, made a real game of it.

 

[MUFC1987]

Should have had Southee. That was the plumbest LBW you'll ever see and it cost him 4 runs.

 

[Ahmad94]

Should have had Southee. That was the plumbest LBW you'll ever see and it cost him 4 runs.

The umpiring generally has been abysmal over the last few years. Some shocking decisions in this Champions Trophy, ICC t20 World CUP AND IPL

 

[MUFC1987]

And then the cricketing Gods change their minds. Quite how he managed to miss badly enough to hit the other end, I will never know, but it's worked for Sri Lanka.

What a game.

 

[Ahmad94]

If the last ball of this over, is bowled well, than Malinga has half a chance at winning the game for Sri Lanka.

 

[MUFC1987]

Yeah, you get the feeling this is it. 6 balls from Malinga to decide the game.

 

[Ahmad94]

Yeah, you get the feeling this is it. 6 balls from Malinga to decide the game.

There were only 2 or 3 good balls in that over. Sad that Sri Lanka lose. Had the McCullum got out earlier, it would be a whole different story.

 

[CG123]

Now we need Elliott to hurry up and get fit so we can finally drop Franklin.

 

[Owzat]

Gripping thriller from the kiwankan game, not sure I'd call it a "classic" as I saw on the BBC.

Talking of BBC, someone was commenting on the net run rate and how it is farcical that the lankans should have a worse net run rate than the aussies who lost by a bigger margin. I have to concur, while it may seem quasi logical to measure the event over the full 50 overs, when one side loses by one wicket and the other by 40 odd runs with the margins not reflected in the net run rate then you have to doubt the formula.

Personally I've long been an advocate of 'standardising' margins, and the only way I've come up with doing that is by measuring how many wickets the winning side had left when they were at the same score as the losing side.

NZL beat SRL by 1 wkt
ENG beat AUS by 48 runs - England were 221/6 so would be 4 wkts
WIN beat PAK by 2 wkts
IND beat SAF by 26 runs - India were 305/6 so would be 4 wkts

This takes out the nature of the pitch because it should be about the same for both sides.

 

[tooly]

The umpiring generally has been abysmal over the last few years. Some shocking decisions in this Champions Trophy, ICC t20 World CUP AND IPL

Thats why they have the DRS,was not used well by both sides so opens up the chance of bad calls.The fact that india dont want to use it doesnt help at all

 

[tooly]

Nz looking good though, shud have a great chance of winning the cup