Sri Lanka

2015 World Cup Quarter-Final – Sri Lanka v South Africa

LordCanisLupus58 Comments

Feel free to comment, and that includes all the journos who had to fly home because their newspaper budgets don’t stretch to watching the denouement of a major world tournament because England have been knocked out. You want an indication of how cricket is falling out of our fabric of sporting life?

Still, never mind. We were never any good at this one day lark.

Enjoy proper players playing properly because they aren’t paralysed with fear and their coaches aren’t in love with Moneyball. Well at least until South Africa come out to bat, but then again, they are there at least.

Comments below.

2015 World Cup – Game 22 – England v Sri Lanka

LordCanisLupus64 Comments

Wellington. Eight days ago. Annihilation.

Welcome back England, for an important game in the qualification process. Win, and we may get South Africa or India, lose and we may get South Africa or India. There’s a lot riding on this one. Actually, that’s being facetious. The big game in this group may not be this one, although winning it would help, but the one against Bangladesh. I’m looking past Afghanistan which may not be wise, but the Sri Lankans have alread buried Bangla and struggled past Afgha, so they have their two wins out of the way.

This thread is for comments as the game goes on. Also, follow my other alter ego, you know what it is, on Twitter for comments through the evening.

The past form guide isn’t good. We lost in 2011, in the quarters, in a stuffing. We lost in 2007, in the Super 8s, when Ravi and Paul Nixon came so close to snatching a win, which I was trying to listen to while at the same time listen to my future wife in the car back from Heathrow Airport, having not seen her for around 2 months! She still doesn’t understand this obsession with cricket. In 2003 we didn’t meet, whereas we did in 1999 when we won a low-key damp opening day game (I had a George Sharp anecdote re no play at The Oval, then found out it was another time – probably 2004… only five years out). Then there was Faisalabad in 1996, memorable for the brainstorm of picking Phil de Freitas and getting him to bowl spin! Brilliant times. Oh those Illingworth years….