Comments on both games to be put into this thread. Pakistan need a win, and Australia need to get back on to their horses and start to dominate. We hope the associate nations play well.
I’m spent… See you tomorrow.
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Being Outside Cricket 
UAE won the toss, and elected to bowl.
Pakistan are unchanged. Sarfraz is not playing, despite Jamshed’s 1 of 11 for the loss of his wicket on two occasions, and the numerous drops Umar Akmal has already made this tournament. No game time for Yasir Shah either.
Will be very interesting to see if Pakistan can put some serious runs on the board.
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Shahid Afridi 10-ball 50?
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Good over dat, Guruge.
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Since when is Len Pascoe a lefty and why is he opening the bowling for Afghanistan?
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Noticed that as well! Similar frenetic action but far less intimidating. Pascoe was someone you didn’t want to meet in a dark alleyway.
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Same hair, same big backside and, as you say, same frenetic action. From memory, Pascoe used to open the bowling for Bankstown in Sydney Grade Cricket. His opening partner was some bloke called Jeff Thompson. 24 hour flu was quite common amongst opening batsmen in those days.
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I always wondered what happened to Pascoe. As a kid I saw Lillee and Thomson as well as Pascoe, and he was the bowler I least wanted to face (not that I ever had the chance!). But he was genuinely intimidating, more than Lillee or Thomson IMO. As well as bowling fast he looked like a thug. He was pretty skillful as well. I guess Australia had some pretty good quicks to choose from in those days. Rodney Hogg wasn’t too bad either.
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Seems he is now making a living as a speaker at events. If you Google his name you should be able to find out a thing or two.
(I am not in the business of providing links on blogs to something that is commercial and not directly relevant to cricket; sometimes this can give problems to blogs).
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http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/668721.html
You may both enjoy this
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Thank you, THA, that was indeed a very enjoyable article. It brought back a lot of memories. I can’t find anything as good as that for Pascoe, but hope the youngsters here will believe me when I say he was as scary as Thomson, if not for his bowling speed then the feeling he’d mug you if you hit a boundary off his bowling.
Lillee was on a different level of course…
All I could find for Len Pascoe was this:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/20/1077072839448.html
If Australia didn’t have so many great fast bowlers in that era, I suspect Pascoe would have been a real star. I was shocked to find out while trying to find a decent article about him that he only played 14 tests.
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https://twitter.com/NickSharland/status/573046716569677824
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They’re doing their best, and they have achieved that.
417/6 after 50 overs. The highest score in World Cups. I’d be pleasantly surprised if Afghanistan get beyond 200 – their bowling is generally their stronger suit, and they are facing one of the best bowling attacks in the tournament.
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I love how the Aussie commentators are creaming their pants about beating up Afghanistan.
A decade ago the Afghan national team were touring England playing Sussex tier 6 clubs. It’s an astonishing rise.
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Collective income of the Afghanis players and coaches, excluding match fees. Roughly $50 k / month (I am guessing here – this figure may be too high).
Collective income of the English, excluding match fees. Roughly $3 million / month (it is probably higher considering all the backroom staff employed).
Difference in performance, in runs? 75. Difference in run ratios conceded? 6:5 (417:342) Difference in funding ratios? About 1:60 I somehow have the impression that considering the money Afghanistanis get, that they’re relatively speaking performing 40-odd times better than England.
I know the relationship between funding and performance is not linear, but still. Improvements tend to become more and more marginal, but I doubt that if the entire England team had to share $50k / month, that they’d even be bothering to play.
We could do similar metrics for Scotland and Australia, with regards to their 3 wicket and 1-wicket loss against New Zealand. Or would that be too embarrassing for the blokes?
I hate such condescension towards the smaller teams. Maybe it is time to watch some cricketing highlights from Australia in the early 1980s, before Border transformed the team.
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They do it to everyone in truth. That remarkable article by Geoff Lemon about Channel 9 in the Guardian nailed it.
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I know they do it to everyone. One of my friends is Australian, and he has been subjected to it. It has taken a couple of years of comedic therapy to help him recover.
Nothing wrong with taking a bit of pride in your team – but don’t cross the boundaries where you’re starting to insult the other team. Or if you do, also start calling your own players useless, jokers, tourists, or whatever insulting epitaphs they use to designate the opposition.
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Warne’s commentary had to be the worst. ‘Australia’s going to score 500’.
“He (Warner) is going to score 300 on his own, I reckon” He was out two balls later.
“This is some great bowling” which preceded three waist high full tosses which went for six.
ShAAAAne has disappointed me more than any other commentator over the last few years. So much potential, yet so much utter dross.
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Well spotted Stuart. Nothing gets past you.
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I notice the Aussies front loaded their line up with heavy hitters. Can you imagine England doing that? It would ruin the stats!
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Refusing to change the batting line up in any circumstances is the new flexible. Didn’t you know?
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Especially when you and Anderson open the bowling
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Sadly, Afghanistan never really got going, and the middle order was quite brittle. From 94/3 they collapsed to 142 all out.
This is the biggest winning margin in terms of runs scored in World Cup history.
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No surprise. But in their case it’s a matter of the progress they are making (they’ve got a quicker bowler than England has) in a very short period of time. How much they lose by is utterly irrelevant in this World Cup – or rather it should be. Naturally the ICC are doing everything they can to prevent them continuing their rapid progress.
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No arguments there. It is hard to compete, when you’re facing quality opposition once every four years. I am fairly confident that the Afghanistan batsmen had never had to deal with Starc yorkers at 90+ mph. They can only learn if they get the exposure, and the ICC seems to be hellbent to ensure that that does not happen.
Give these Afghanis a proper schedule, and proper support, and they’ll be getting some decent results in 5 or 10 years. Same with Ireland.
The reality is, that unless these countries transform in true economic powerhouses, the ICC won’t be interested in what the Afghanis can do on the field. Even then, the interest just seems to be limited to the money these countries can generate for rights.
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Not a big fan, gotta give credit to Warne.
On the commentary gig during the Aussie match, he advocated the inclusion of associate teams in the World Cup. Even pushed the idea test nations play their ‘A’ squads with them. Sold the whole expansionist idea.
Yes all the ideas have been said before but hearing it from voices you don’t expect, hopefully ICC notice and enough pressure is applied on them.
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Sachin Tendulkar has also criticized the ICC and even called for a 25 team World Cup. Full story here:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc-cricket-world-cup-2015/content/story/841887.html
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Sachin Tendulkar has also criticized the ICC and even called for a 25 team World Cup. Full story here:
http://goo.gl/GMvJz3
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Unreported on the ICC website even though Tendulkar is an ICC Ambassador.
Sachin who?
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They haven’t replied to him so far he says.
Here is Jarrod Kimber’s view on this story:
http://goo.gl/fFs18V
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LCL
Your competition running totals need updating. I thought you might be especially keen to do this, seeing as Mitchell Marsh getting out off the last ball means you are spot on with the highest innings total (and I just needed him to score one poxy run, bah!!!).
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