O ye of little faith
In my defence, after losses in netball and league, our franchises going down in basketball and soccer, not to mention the Auckland rugby team, it is a bit of an ask to expect the NZ cricket team to uplift the sporting mood in the shaky isles.
But good on them. Or rather the captain Fleming. If you are brutally honest, he (maybe along with Mills) is the only reason why NZ won - sometimes there is a fine line between sporting success and failure (anyone from SPARC reading this?) and had his wicket fallen anywhere in the first 30 overs rather than the 44th, I have little doubt the result would have been different. But it didn't, so we celebrate rather than commiserate.
South Africa must be getting sick of him - a sublime 134 in the last World Cup to effectively knock them out in their backyard, a double ton in a test match earlier this year and now this. The only pity was he didn't get a ton; on any other pitch he would have been 130, not 89 when he ran out of juice.
So onto today - and we have Pakistan in total disarray against Sri Lanka who have purred through their qualification matches without a hitch. In case anyone hasn't heard, the latest drama to hit the soap opera known as Pakistani cricket is their two strike bowlers Ahktar and Asif have tested positive to Nandrolone and have gone home. Why the fk cricketers need to take steroids is beyond me and if any of my 4 regular readers has a clue, please enlighten me.
On the back of that, Sri Lanka have shortened from around $1.80 to $1.57 for tonight's match - I don't know if the full amount of that movement is justified as express pace is not the vital ingredient on these pitches, but there is no doubt Pakistan will be weakened. And a word of caution; despite England's collapse two days ago, Jaipur is not the minefield of Mumbai - so it won't be a total surprise to see the batters get some runs. Sri Lanka deserve to be favourites, but I live in hope the game will be competitive and despite the removal of two bowlers, the batting lineup of Pakistan (assuming the pitch is OK) provides a reason to suggest it might be.
Finally, yesterday saw me enter a $3.30 online poker tournie on a whim - and blow me down five hours later I make the final table of 9 from the original 1492 entrants. Yes I was lucky - with about 200 left I got a straight on the last card to triple up my shortish stack and from there through to the final 9 won three important 50/50 hands. It ran out with 5 left when my A8 got done by the chipleader's K6 when a King fell on the flop. Still, the $200 and the experience puts me in a good frame of mind for the tournie up at the casino this coming weekend.
But good on them. Or rather the captain Fleming. If you are brutally honest, he (maybe along with Mills) is the only reason why NZ won - sometimes there is a fine line between sporting success and failure (anyone from SPARC reading this?) and had his wicket fallen anywhere in the first 30 overs rather than the 44th, I have little doubt the result would have been different. But it didn't, so we celebrate rather than commiserate.
South Africa must be getting sick of him - a sublime 134 in the last World Cup to effectively knock them out in their backyard, a double ton in a test match earlier this year and now this. The only pity was he didn't get a ton; on any other pitch he would have been 130, not 89 when he ran out of juice.
So onto today - and we have Pakistan in total disarray against Sri Lanka who have purred through their qualification matches without a hitch. In case anyone hasn't heard, the latest drama to hit the soap opera known as Pakistani cricket is their two strike bowlers Ahktar and Asif have tested positive to Nandrolone and have gone home. Why the fk cricketers need to take steroids is beyond me and if any of my 4 regular readers has a clue, please enlighten me.
On the back of that, Sri Lanka have shortened from around $1.80 to $1.57 for tonight's match - I don't know if the full amount of that movement is justified as express pace is not the vital ingredient on these pitches, but there is no doubt Pakistan will be weakened. And a word of caution; despite England's collapse two days ago, Jaipur is not the minefield of Mumbai - so it won't be a total surprise to see the batters get some runs. Sri Lanka deserve to be favourites, but I live in hope the game will be competitive and despite the removal of two bowlers, the batting lineup of Pakistan (assuming the pitch is OK) provides a reason to suggest it might be.
Finally, yesterday saw me enter a $3.30 online poker tournie on a whim - and blow me down five hours later I make the final table of 9 from the original 1492 entrants. Yes I was lucky - with about 200 left I got a straight on the last card to triple up my shortish stack and from there through to the final 9 won three important 50/50 hands. It ran out with 5 left when my A8 got done by the chipleader's K6 when a King fell on the flop. Still, the $200 and the experience puts me in a good frame of mind for the tournie up at the casino this coming weekend.
Labels: cricket
posted by Rob Crawford at 1:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home