Cricket WC Till Now

The World Cup is now nearly a week old, and there haven't been any upsets yet. Australia won their matches against Zimbabwe and New Zealand comfortably. The Aussies won by 91 runs and 7 wickets respectively. Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait did the honours in the latter match. The defending champions have shown that they really are among the favourites, and their negative results in the two warm-up games are not to be taken seriously.
England were stretched be the Netherlands on Tuesday, chasing down the target of 292 with a mere 8 balls to spare. The Oranje exploited some average bowling to get that intimidating score. Ryan ten Doeschate, recently bought by Kolkata Knight Riders, scored a brilliant hundred. The English batting saved them from an early embarrassment.
Pakistan beat Kenya by a massive 205 runs. They scored a good 317 for 7 and bowled out the Africans for 112. They are not to be judged too quickly, though.
South Africa beat West Indies by 7 wickets on Thursday. They got the Caribbean boys out for just 222 in 47.3 overs and got the required target in 42.5 overs. AB de Villiers joined the century club with an unbeaten century.
We haven't seen any upsets yet. The league stage is for a month, though, and it won't be long, I hope, before a respectable team is shocked.
Ireland is falling apart as I type this. They are a not exactly good 147 for 5.
Some teams have shown sterling displays, while some have been demoralised by early losses. One side will come top.

The WC So Far

The Cricket World Cup is upon us, and three matches are already over (and the fourth is happening as I type). Two days after a spectacular opening ceremony, the first ball of the anticipated quadrennial event was bowled - and hit for a four. India beat co-host Bangladesh by a convincing 87 runs. Virender Sehwag stole the show with his 175, perhaps proving himself as great as Kapil Dev. Virat Kohli scored a century on his World Cup debut, a feat that has been done before, but commendable nevertheless. India posted an intimidating 370. Bangladesh looked good at points, but the Indian bowlers, Harbhajan, Munaf and Zaheer in particular, choked the Bangladesh batting and restricted them to 283.
New Zealand beat Kenya in a grossly one-sided match yesterday. After bowling out the Africans for a mere 69, the Kiwis chased down the total in 8 overs. Kenya will be looking to bounce back against unpredictable Pakistan on Wednesday.
Sri Lanka beat Canada in another lopsided match. The co-hosts won by a whopping 210 runs. They scored 332 for 7, Jayawardene's century the highlight, and bundled out the North Americans for 122, the feared bowling attack doing the honours.
Zimbabwe is stumbling as I type. Not unexpected.
One and a half more months of international cricket, and then comes the IPL. Four more months of relentless cricket. And two teams will lift up trophies in the end. Which teams, is what these four months are all about.

Football Update

European Leagues

Manchester United bounced back from their shock loss to Wolves and beat city rivals Manchester City 2-1 with Rooney scoring a spectacular bicycle kick goal. Chelsea's title hopes were handed the final blow with a goalless draw with Fulham and are now twelve points adrift of leaders Man U.
Barcelona's winning streak was ended as they drew 1-1 with lowly Sporting Gijon. Real Madrid closed the gap between them to five points.
Borussia Dortmund were held again to a draw, while holders Bayern Munich moved up to third place and are within reach of second-placed Mainz, whom they play this weekend.
AC Milan thrashed Parma 4-0 while Napoli beat Roma 2-0. European champions Inter Milan lost to Juventus 1-0. AC Milan are top and are 3 points ahead of Napoli.

Champions League

AC Milan lost to Tottenham 0-1, the lone goal being scored by Peter Crouch. It was a game with lots of fouls and Gennaro Gattusso was particularly ill-tempered throughout. Valencia drew 1-1 with Schalke 04.
Arsenal came from a goal down to shock favourites Barcelona 2-1, Robin van Persie and Arshavin scoring the late goals for the Gunners. Shakhtar Donetsk surprised Roma 3-2.
Next week will be a repeat of last year's final, Inter vs Bayern. Will the result be a repeat too?

Five more days.

Five more days and the biggest ODI tournament is under way. The stadia are all ready (a far cry from last year's CWG!) and some warm-up games have been played. India won a thriller against Australia in a match that had a lot of wickets. India was bundled out for 214, which is not exactly respectable, but suddenly Piyush Chawla turned the game around, picking up four Australian wickets. South Africa won easily against Zimbabwe at Chennai, while New Zealand, Sri Lanka and West Indies also picked up wins.
This format is the same as the 1996 format, which I didn't know much about earlier because I wasn't born then. The teams are in two groups, decided by ranking, and they play all other teams in their group. The top four in each group qualify for the knockouts. This means there will be some mouthwatering clashes and some matches which could be anything but crowd-pullers.
Waugh has said SA are the favourites, and I think so too. Kapil Dev has said India has a very good chance, while Sourav Ganguly is playing safe by not declaring any clear favourites.
Some people say 14's too big a number, but I say it's not enough. Look at the FIFA World Cup. 32 teams, and is it boring or do we see empty stadiums? The FIFA World Cup is special - once every four years and one of the few times when national teams play each other really competitively. There are national cricket matches all the time, so...are we bored? Cricket has a lot to learn from football.
I don't like the Umpire Decision Review System. It gives cricket a very artificial feel. True, umpires are prone to error, but the UDRS is not neat and unobtrusive like the tennis Hawk-Eye.
This is a different World Cup in many ways. Will it be a new winner too?

9 Days to go...

Just over a week to go and the biggest cricketing event is here! I hope that the Indian team gives us some new victorious footage; I am up to my neck with my father recounting 1983 and Kapil's Devils. 1983 has become some sort of a Ramayana in India, and thankfully India is back in the list of probable winners. Steve Waugh predicting an SA win, and so am I. They have an experienced captain in Graeme Smith, a crack all-rounder in Jacques Kallis, solid batsmen in JP Duminy, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers and superb bowlers in quickie Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe who shone in the recent series against India and Morne Morkel. However, India's flat tracks are not the same as SA's bouncy ones, so they will have to adapt a bit.
Holders Australia come back fresh from a 6-1 series thumping of England and will be trying to make it four-in-a-row, but are now being troubled by injuries to key players.
India are playing at home, and this means support but a lot of pressure too. This could be Sachin's last shot at winning the crowning glory for his sparkling career. There is a balance between experienced players like Sachin and younger ones like Virat Kohli.
West Indies have not played in the subcontinent for a while now, and they will need to get used to the tracks and conditions. They have hitters like Pollard which is an asset on batting tracks like these.
Sri Lanka hve good bowlers and decent batsmen, but are not really among the favourites. They are perfectly capable of springing a surprise, though.
England just got beaten really convincingly by the Aussies 1-6, but they too have some quality players and could cause problems for the big guns.
This World Cup features 14 teams, not a big number compared to FIFA World Cup's 32, and there sre contrasting teams, from No. 1 and holders Australia to unranked Canada. In a place like the subcontinent, sparks are sure to fly. When you go for a match, be sure to take a helmet along.
Looking forward to some great cricket, and a deserving winner!

Man U and Chelsea lose!

This weekend's EPL was so exciting! Arsenal quickly built up a 4-0 lead away at Newcastle, but the hosts started a late flurry of goals to draw 4-4. Two of Newcastle's goals were from the penalty mark. Manchester United lost to last-placed giant-killers Wolverhampton 2-1. Nani picked up an early lead for Man U, but Wolves scored two more to add one more to the list of big names they've beaten, which includes Chelsea and Manchester City. Chelsea lost at Stamford Bridge to Liverpool 0-1, the only goal being scored by Raul Meireles. New boy in blue Torres, seemed to forget that he was not playing for Liverpool any more as he put on an uncharacteristically unspectacular show. Chelsea are 10 points adrift of Man U. Manchester City won their match 3-0, Tevez scoring a het-trick on his birthday. Saturday saw a record 41 EPL goals in one day, with, other than the aforementioned 4-4 draw, 5-3 and 3-2 results.

Football Transfers

The January transfer window shut last week, and some big names have moved clubs. Of course, the big signing was of Fernando Torres to Chelsea. The Blues bought El Nino from Liverpool for a record 50 million pounds, making him the fourth most expensive player in history. Torres has remained a thorn in the flesh of the London club for quite a while, and he scored both goals in their last encounter. Interestingly, his debut is against Liverpool on Sunday.
Liverpool are not short of strikers though, as they bagged Luis Suarez from Ajax and Andy Carroll from Newcastle. Suarez in notorious for his goalline handball against Ghana in the World Cup 2010 and, even more recently, biting an opponent in the Eredivisie. Carroll has scored a lot of goals for Newcastle, and the club seem to be in trouble without him, as they lost 1-0 to Fulham.
Real Madrid bought Emmanuel Adebayor from Manchester City.