Cricket World Cup shorts

First of all watching the TV shots of the crowds at the games it is clear that I am currently a few hundred miles from where I should be. I wish Kenyan women would take a leaf from their West Indian counterparts and come bask with me in the sun. No wonder cricket is increasingly becoming popular around these parts.

As shown below, Kamande has the best wicket celebration of any bowler at this world cup.

Saturday was a brilliant day at the Cricket World Cup with the revenge of the minnows, Bangladesh beating India and even more spectacular, Ireland beating Pakistan, and on St. Patrick’s weekend too.

The African teams have had mixed results with, Kenya and South Africa easily winning their opening games. Zimbabwe drew with Ireland and lost to the West Indies leaving them with a must win game against Pakistan.

It looks like in every major tournament Kenya suffers some serious bad timing. In the middle of 1999 World Cup Tendulkar lost his father. He flew back to England to play immediately after attending his father’s funeral. The match was against Kenya. Of course the man was on a mission as he was batting for his father and scored the first century of that World Cup in a fantastic innings. This time round, we play get to play England after half their team was caught drunk and their main player Flintoff had to be rescued from the ocean on his paddle boat. They were all fined or dropped for their match against Canada and have been slaughtered in the international and local press so they all want redemption and are eager to play the best game of their lives. Who is that game against? Kenya.

Today’s match against New Zealand will be a tough one to say the least. But I feel Kenya can spank England. England have no wicket takers, their formidable bowling attack of Monty and Flintoff averages one wicket each per match in ODI, and they only have two batsmen Pietersen and Collingwood. Sunday should be a good game. Of course I still believe we can beat New Zealand today, and then the match against England would be very very interesting.

As for South Africa, those guys are on a mission and they look menacing. Gibbs six sixes in an over was amazing to watch, unless you were Daan van Bunge (hehehe ati the guy is called bunge – perhaps we should get Gibbs to come and knock some of our MPs for six). Luuk van Troost, the Dutch captain said, “I didn’t know where to put my players anymore, it was a nightmare!” and on the bowling side Makhaya Ntini hasn’t even played yet and must be raring to go after the birth of his second child.

R.I.P Bob Woolmer.