The Report Card

Written by Jatin Thakkar

Friday, 21 September 2007

Twelve teams found their way into the Twenty20 World Championship, some of them coming in willingly and eagerly, some of them being dragged into the cricket circus against their wishes and desires to not indulge in ‘trivial cricket’, while most others walking in curious and unsure of what to expect.

Ten days and two-thirds of the tournament later, the expressions and mindsets have changed a great deal. Those eager to get the world involved in a format they had internalized (England, South Africa) have suddenly found themselves left out of their own party. The grumpy Australians have resigned themselves to the fact that whether they like it or not Twenty20 is here to stay and they will have to respect it, and are looking to console themselves by trying to add another World Championship trophy to their cupboard. The Indians and Pakistanis have come in reasonably unfancied and without expectations, and have suddenly discovered that they could quite do with this kind of stuff.

To try and make sense of the roller-coaster rides each of these teams have through, let’s look at what each of them have done, and what got got them where they are.

South Africa

Having lost just one out of the five games they have played in the entire tournament and still finding themselves without a semi-final to play, Smith and co. may as well add this to their long list of foolish, unfortunate misses.

Despite that, the South Africans can be said to have had a more-than-decent tournament, constructed by some brilliant fielding, accurate bowling and powerful, big-hitting. But the fall from the lofty peaks of chasing 205 in under 18 overs against the Windies to the depths of succumbing to the pressure when chasing 153 and tying themselves in knots twisted enough to keep them away from even scoring 126 to qualify is a blemish that won’t be erased too easily.
Holding Willey Rating: 6/10

Australia

Having started their rise in the tournament with a grave post-match press conference after the loss to Zimbabwe, Australia seem to have understood the ground realities and have spent more working hours off the ground trying to rectify their attitude and approach.

With steadier starts and wicket-to-wicket bowling, they seem to have made up lost ground, and now stand a better chance to win another championship. The ease with which they knocked aside the Sri Lankan barrier was a strong statement of intent and could well be their turning point in the tournament. However, the middle remains too soft an underbelly and getting the top three batsmen quickly will leave it vulnerable.
HW Rating: 7.5/10

India

Coming into the tournament as utter underdogs, with minimum Twenty20 experience and with the holy trinity of Indian batting, Sachin, Saurav and Dravid out, the Indian team has shown almost uncharacteristic pluck and courage so far.

While the Indian bowling has generally overperformed, a big worry still remains in the form of the weakness of the bowlers when containing batsmen in the dying overs. This was the primary factor that allowed Pakistan to sneak in a tie and gave the Kiwis a 75 run surge in the last 5 overs, the key to their 10 run win. There is also a bit of a question mark over the big hitting prowess in the lower-middle half of the batting line-up.

They will now be hoping that the momentum gathered from the big wins against South Africa and England will outweigh these niggles.
HW Rating: 7/10

England

With an early exit from the tournament without a single significant win, the Englishmen may well be regretting having invented yet another format to do badly in.

One of the most experienced teams in the new format, England seemed to have forgotten their basics. With most of their domestic stars fizzling out at the international stage, and Flintoff looking like he would much rather be somewhere on a lake, pedaling away from this mayhem, Pietersen and Collingwood were left with too much to do.

The best that can be said for them is that they ran a few teams close.
HW Rating: 4/10

New Zealand

As always, the Kiwis started the tournament being one of the strongest on-paper sides, even more so given this pattern of the game. With hard-hitters throughout the batting line-up and excellent bowling so far, the Kiwis seem to have the right balance to continue doing well in this tournament.

For teams yet to play them, breaking the spine of the Kiwi batting spine might seem difficult given that they have muscle spread through the batting order. The bowling, however, needs fortification beyond Vettori.
HW Rating: 7/10

Bangladesh

Once again, the Bangladeshis flattered to deceive. Still, there was some consistency in their overall performance carrying on from the World Cup, as the Tigers once again made it to the second round, this time eliminating the Windies.

The format seemed to be better suited to their bursts-and-spurts nature of playing, and the batsmen seem to now have gained enough courage with the international success so far to go out and smash the big boys. Consistency, however, is missing, and mere flashes in the pan can’t make for a good meal.
HW rating: 3/10

Pakistan

Following a phenomenal and quintessentially Pakistani-flavoured mercurial surge in performance, Pakistan have beaten both Australia and Lanka to reach the semi-final, topping their group.

What is very interesting is despite being extensively criticized for not excercising the seemingly simple and logical move of shifting Afridi up the order, the other batsmen seem to have justified the batting order.

Though Mohammad Asif came in to the tournament as one of the most anticipated bowlers on show, the rest of the Pakistani bowlers have grown with the tournament and the pack as a whole has turned out to be more to contend with than just Asif. With the middle order and Afridi being as effective as they are, the Kiwis will need some serious planning to try and rein in the Pakistani juggernaut.
HW Rating: 7.5/10

Sri Lanka

What seemed to have started off as a promising tournament has turned out to be a disaster for the Lankans, as they moved out of the super eight stage with only a not-so-impressive victory over Bangladesh.

A massive fall from their first round show of power, there was never enough support coming forward to cover for Jayasuriya, Sangakkara and Jayawardene. With very little to take back home from South Africa, Lanka will return home to do a serious rethink on exactly where they stand as far as the 20 over format is concerned.
HW Ratings: 5.5/10

Comments

Add New

RSS