US Plays Cricket (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

Time for some prognostication, as the beginning of The Champions Trophy approaches.

There are nominally 12 teams in the tournament, divided into four pools. But each pool has a sacrificial lamb included in the mix, with no realistic chance of winning even one match, much less advancing, so in reality there are only eight teams to be considered.

Pool A:

Australia
New Zealand
United States (no experience in Competitions of this nature—even if they had the players—and they don’t)


Pool B:

Bangladesh (ranked last in the world in both forms of cricket. And not only last—dead last)
South Africa
West Indies


Pool C:

India
Kenya (not a test side and ranked second last in ODI competition. Cricket in Kenya is undergoing some turmoil due to a lack of funds and national political unrest.)
Pakistan


Pool D:

England
Sri Lanka
Zimbabwe (Only ranked above Bangladesh and Kenya in one-day cricket—and the team is in a tailspin. Most of the top players have been suspended by their national board due to political considerations)


The format is a single round robin in each pool, with one team advancing. In Pool A, Australia should manage to beat New Zealand, but one-day cricket is much like baseball in that a hot player at the right time can help an inferior team to beat a better one. And the Kiwis are a very good team. Australia should probably beat them 3 or 4 times out of 5—but which day will it be?

South Africa used to be the second best team at both forms of cricket. They have fallen into a tailspin, especially in one-day cricket, getting hidings from the Kiwis and Sri Lankens of late. The West Indies may have fallen on even harder times, being pretty much beaten by everyone—most recently England. South Africa should prevail.

India and Pakistan are traditional arch-rivals, cricket being the national sport in each country. Both have very good teams, but India will miss Sachin Tendulkar generally considered to be the premiere batsman in the world. Pakistan has won the last couple of important one-day matches against India. I pick India in a minor upset.

England and Sri Lanka are two very fine teams on the rise, although England is probably playing better test cricket than the one-day form right now. They have the current hottest player. Sri Lanka has the best spin bowler in the world, and England are notoriously poor players of spin (Americans can think of a junk-ball pitcher here). England is playing at home, which should be an advantage, but I’ll pick Sri Lanka on current form (they just won the Asia cup).

The second round is the Pool A & D winners and Pool B against Pool C. In the latter pairing either India or Pakistan should handle either of the teams from Pool B, so I’ll go with India again.

Australia has a bit of an edge against Sri Lanka, beating them in both types of cricket a couple of months ago—so I’ll pick them again, but I’d not be surprised at any outcome.

This leaves Australia playing India for the championship. India has a dismal record in tournament finals—they manage to get to the finals, but always seem to lose. Just as Australia always seems to figure out a way to win. Australia in a close one (but again, any outcome would not be a surprise).

 

[Nick Sievers]

Although I don't have a lot of knowledge with sports my former roommate was a cricket nut and I had never heard him talking about it. If it is played over here it hasn't had a lot of publicity.

And if I had to choose, Cricket shits all over Baseball.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Breaking sports news—the US lost a practice match to Bangladesh—no real surprise, as cricket is a passion there, as it is all over South Asia. However a bit of background may show how very far we have to go.

Bangladesh is actually a ‘test’ nation—these are countries where the level of cricket is considered high enough to allow them to play at the highest level. However they have not managed to ever win a test match (and have only drawn one—and that was in a match shortened by rain). Their rating by the International Cricket Council (ICC) is 1. By comparison the next worst country is Zimbabwe with a rating of 51. Australia is on top at 129. It is possible that Zimbabwe is actually the worst test side right now, as they have lost all of their front-line players due to internal political problems. Still Bangladesh is really bad.

In ODI cricket, Bangladesh has a rating of zero. The next worst team is Kenya (not a test side, but they are ranked in ODI play) with a rating of 28. Zimbabwe is at 61 and of course the Aussies are on top at 138. Again it is possible that both Kenya and Zimbabwe are actually worse than Bangladesh—as both countries have had turmoil in cricket due to internal politics. Still by any measure Bangladesh is really bad.

In the practice match they played the Americans and were 5/285 during their innings (turn at bat). This means that they lost five wickets (or outs) while scoring 285 runs.

The US was 8/215, meaning that they lost by 70 runs. Not even close. The good news (for the US) was that they were not bowled out—that is, losing 10 wickets and that they actually scored a reasonable total.

However this is still the equivalent of losing a baseball game to the original New York Mets by a score of 20–5.

Stay tuned—more to come.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Hold the presses. I just found this.

The US actually won a match!

They beat Zimbabwe by four wickets in a practice match. Decoded, this means that the US had four outs left when they scored their winning runs. Much like baseball, when the team batting second (and last) is ahead, the game is over.

In this case Zimbabwe scored 272 runs while losing four wickets. The US then managed to get 273 with only 2 deliveries left in the match. The hero for the US was Steve Massiah who scored 142 runs.

This will surely cause the ICC to reassess Zimbabwe’s status in international cricket. The Zimbabwe cricket council had pled for a year or so of leniency (in being suspended from international play) in order to get their cricket house in order. But this has to be most embarrassing.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Fascinating. And I'm not taking the piss here, although I don't really follow cricket, I am familiar with it, even played it once (i.e. literally participated in one game).

Who knows, maybe shades of USA 1 England 0 at the 1950 World Cup? Nah, that's overstating it.

It's interesting to see the USA take more of an interest in sports that the rest of the world play extensively, rather than just stick to their own big 4 pro sports. Football (the real one played with a round ball and by the feet, not the hands) was a no-brainer, being THE most popular sport in the world, and also possibly the most lucrative outside of USA, but cricket's following isn't quite as widespread, limited mostly to some former bits (albeit large ones) of the British Empire.

 

[Jonathan White]

I'm watching the USA New Zealand match now (England match still not started due to rain). USA are playing well, New Zealand are 73 - 2 after 18 overs and the USA don't look out of their depth.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I went out to Cricinfo and checked the US/Zimbabwe scorecard. Steve Massiah’s centaury came at a run a ball (142 runs from 142 balls). Pretty impressive no matter the opposition. Still I put that result down more to the turmoil in Zimbabwe cricket than the US being good. But if they can play the Kiwis pretty well, I’ll be surprised.

 

[Lew Crippen]

And the truth comes out after a full 50 overs: New Zealand was 4/347.

348 would be an awesome target even for the Aussies, Sri Lanka or India (with Tendulkar).

 

[Lew Crippen]

One more thing—you can bet that with the prospect of rain, no one will be shown any mercy. If for example the New Zealand/Australia match gets rained out (even if there is a slot for a rain day, it could still happen), the winner will advance on NRR. Or, put simply for Americans—who can beat the Americans the worst.

 

[Jonathan White]

The USA are now 114-6 (29 overs)they lost 4 wickets in 7 balls, not too good.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Well, it is all over. New Zealand crushed the Americans by 210 runs. The Kiwis were 4/347 in their innings, while the US was 137 all out in their 43rd over.

This is about as bad as it gets. 348 is an extremely difficult target, even for a great team playing on a flat wicket. On the other hand 137 is a pretty poor total, although a part of that is due to the Americans having to take chances in order to reach the 348 target.

The Americans can take a bit of comfort from the fact that 10 of their 11 players were playing in their very first ‘official’ One Day International. Their lone player who has played in an official match, Clayton Lambert (he played for the West Indies) has only played in 11 ODIs. The least experienced Kiwi has played in 14. And they have several players who have been in over 200 ODIs. So they will never be that inexperienced again.

But next up for the Americans are the mighty Aussies (Monday).

 

[andrew markworthy]

Not at all. Getting into triple figures for a newbie team against the Kiwis is praiseworthy. Give it time.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Fair enough Andrew. I’ve seen the Aussies bowl out the West Indies for double digits. So I suppose I should not be too disappointed with 137.

 

[Simon Brooke]

heres from a cricket mad south african

not bad for the us, clayton lambert used to play in south africa, he is a bit old now though. i liked the look of the opening bowler for the us, did get the ball to swing a bit

i phoned up my brother before the nz/us game began, we were betting on nz getting close to the 400 mark, i was suprised that they started off so badly though.

 

[Simon Brooke]

lew don't be too sad with 137, we knocked over bangladesh for 90 odd today, and as somebody else said, they are a test nation.

 

[Lew Crippen]

All over for the US—if they were thrashed, but at last had something positive playing New Zealand, the Aussies gave them no chance at all.

First they bowled out the US for only 65. The US lasted only 24 overs (less than half of their allotment).

Then the Aussies got their win inside of eight overs, losing only one wicket. So the match lasted less than 32 overs (or a little less than one-third of the amount of play expected.

At least the pretend games are about over (there are only three more mismatches scheduled) with the first real match (Australia v New Zealand on Thursday).

A test nation true enough, but so far they have done nothing to merit their status.

They have played 30 matches, losing 27 and drawing 3.

 

[Lew Crippen]

True enough that Bangladesh is the newest Test nation and new test sides have a hard time for a while. But a quick contrast with how others have done.

Zimbabwe, after their first 30 tests had only won one—but they managed 14 draws—so their loss percentage was only 50%, contrasted to the 90% loss rate for Bangladesh.

At the same point Sri Lanka had only won two—but they managed 11 draws (a loss percentage of 57%).

 

[andrew markworthy]

If it's any consolation, England have been out for similar scores in recent memory.

It's probably cold comfort, but these things take time. E.g. twenty or so years ago, Pakistan were considered very weak, and now they are amongst the premiere test sides.

 

[Simon Brooke]

zimbabwe's test status has been suspended for the moment because of their top players dispute with the cricket union.

bangladesh should have never got test status, there should be a second divison for some test countries so that they can improve, they should also play more one day games to get more exposure

i would love to see the us take on cricket, i just can't see it happenning beyond immigrant communities.

 

[Girish]

Actually there is more cricket being played in US than most people think. Some people think its a very fast growing sport in this country. I manage a club of two teams in Cleveland area and we play in Midwestern league which has 30 teams from cleveland, columbus, and cincinnati area. Each of these cities have 6-7 dedicated grounds each. If anybody needs more info and is interested in playing drop me an email or check midwestcricket.com or clevelandcricket.com.
Now to ICC champions trophy, the Aussies sure did'nt show any mercy today. After the match Ricky Ponting even said that US team can gain exposure playing local games.
Real tournament starts thursday( New Zealand vs Australia) and then on sunday MOAG(mother of all games) when India plays Pakistan!!!( although no Tendulkar)