Cricket......

[dev null]

Shocking game from our side. Looks like Levi and Parnell are just passengers at the moment. And Morne did not cover himself in glory.

['Dale]

Shocking game from our side. Looks like Levi and Parnell are just passengers at the moment. And Morne did not cover himself in glory.

 

Fork me. That was a long tour, Moriding.

I put this result in the 'tour fatique' box, mostly. Although there is no excuse for a no-ball in T20.

 

Awesome tour.

Dominance in the Tests and two draws in ODI and T20.

[G-Unit]

Shocking game from our side. Looks like Levi and Parnell are just passengers at the moment. And Morne did not cover himself in glory.

 

I find it very hard to take an 11 over a side game seriously. After the highs of test match excitement, last night was absolute drivel. And I'm not just saying this because we lost - I could honestly care less.

 

Why din they just reduce it to 5 overs each. That way they can pack more adverts in.

[babse]

personally iv been very disapointed with AB's performance on tour and especially in the limited over format... some poor calls last by him and a crucial miss-stumping. Parnells over of 32 was the difference!

[RJ23]

I find it very hard to take an 11 over a side game seriously. After the highs of test match excitement, last night was absolute drivel. And I'm not just saying this because we lost - I could honestly care less.

 

Why din they just reduce it to 5 overs each. That way they can pack more adverts in.

 

I agree , even the 9 over game - not a fair reflection to decide a series on such reduced games but i suppose they gained some experience incase something like this happens in the T20 WC

[RJ23]

personally iv been very disapointed with AB's performance on tour and especially in the limited over format... some poor calls last by him and a crucial miss-stumping. Parnells over of 32 was the difference!

 

Im interested to see what's he's batting avg since taking the gloves - he maintains in post match interviews its not a detriment to he's batting, hard to believe tho

[Kranswurm]

I find it very hard to take an 11 over a side game seriously. After the highs of test match excitement, last night was absolute drivel. And I'm not just saying this because we lost - I could honestly care less.

 

Why din they just reduce it to 5 overs each. That way they can pack more adverts in.

 

Agreed

When I saw the rain delay I switched off and did something else

No interest in 9 or 11 over format which is a pure lottery and a joke

[Christie]

Poor showing by SA yesterday. The difference between the 2 sides came to that one Parnel over, in the end, but AB had a terrible game behind the stumps imo, he mised that stumping, and taking some edge catches off the spinners. He also failed to stop some deliveries that turned and some went over middle stump - those should have been dot balls, insted several were 3 or 4 extras.

Tactical mistake by AB to bowl the fast men at the end, Kallis, Parnel and Morkel, when the wicket had a lot of turn. I would have liked to see Ontong and Du Plessis at least bowl one over each.

 

A major problem for SA throughout was that none of the big hitters came off or did well in any inning - Levi, AB, Du Plessis or Morkel. If that does not change for the T20 WC, I don't think we will do well.

[Shebeen]

66 balls. that's a good golf round not a cricket game. Yesterday proves nothing, absolutely zilch.

 

Richard Levi has now scored 11, 19, 8, 0, 1 since his master blaster 117*. He's also pretty much failed in all other non T20I games too (avg 13 at IPL). BUT he doesn't f#$% around, and normally comes out firing so either comes off or doesn't - without wasting balls.

 

Waleed Parnell is always going to be hot and cold. 32 runs of an 8 ball over yesterday was nothing new as it followed 1-5 in his opening over.

 

AB is not really bringing much to the team as a keeper. Why can't he just be captain from point where he saves runs, loads of better keepers who can bat too. Vilas probably topping this list now, but it's a bunfight that won't happen because we only have one keeper in the squad INCREDIBLY CRAP MOVE RIGHT THERE..

 

Faf hasn't taken his chance, been doing so damn well for a while now but his dip in form is possibly going to cost him.

 

So ja, not much really going to change for next week.

 

Hash and Levi to open

ab to keep

botha, petersen, steyn, morkel to bowl

kallis and albie as allrounders

 

last two spots is between faf, duminy, ontong, waleed, lopsie

 

Hash to be man of the series. Can do no wrong right now, topscored in something like 7 out of 9 games on tour!

['Dale]

T20 World Cup: SA vs Zim

 

The white Zim cricketers could not sing their anthem.

Strange to see.

 

GO PROTEAS!

[jules1976]

Could not sing their anthem or didnt want to ?

[Shebeen]

So Behardien gets the last available spot, just don't know enough about him to comment.

 

What's lank interesting is the ground they're playing at. Hambantota. It's in the middle of nowhere, our guys flew in by chopper as there are no hotels around,and it takes forever to drive there.

 

Check this article out.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/502564.html

 

The road from Colombo is cosy and potentially dangerous. It might not look so severe on a map, but driving along it feels like navigating a particularly aimless, thin jalebi, escorted along both sides by thick, beautiful jungle. Intermittently appear signs of life, brief stretches of thatched shops and houses, relief from overwhelming beauty.

About five hours in arrives a junction, at the village of Suriyawewa. The left takes you into a new country. It is the road to Sri Lanka's latest venue, the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium in Hambantota. The road is wide, that darkish sheen fresh roads have, with bright white lane markings. You could skateboard down this, or luge it. Ten kilometres later appears the stadium, an ode to the way the subcontinent works: if there is political will - and no doubt self-interest - great things happen with greater haste.

In a very modern way, like a new Apple gadget, the stadium is beautiful. It stands alone, a little sad and out of place. As you drive through the gates, the back of the grandstand building looks like the front grille of a nifty vintage car. Around the ground, the earth's trees battle the sky's clouds for fluffy beauty. The playing field is deliberately large - apparently with other sports in mind - overlooked at one end by the towering grandstand and at the other by the media centre. On either side are the general stands, two blocks covered and with seating. Two other chunks are grass embankments, so that the whole picture is not too distant a cousin of Supersport park in Centurion. They will soon become covered tiered stands: a shame. The Mahinda Rajapaska Stadium is but a nose job in the vast facelift of the region. But it is currently a most visual symbol of the potential of the district and the power of a president, and above all, proof of just how deep into the soil of the subcontinent cricket has gone.

The town

In one of those common quirks of geography, both the district and its capital town answer to the name Hambantota. This is the deep south of Sri Lanka and almost entirely rural. The economy is essentially agriculture-based: paddy-milling, fruits and vegetables the big earners as well as a developed fishing culture. The King coconuts are magnificent and rightly popular.

Miles pass without a sign of life. Half a million people in this district, which by the standards of the subcontinent is nothing. Even that, in the days spent here, feels an exaggeration but from somewhere, nearly 35,000 came to the first international game. Miles and hours pass without life and then you come across the almost-complete building of an international convention centre. The driver points out structures in the distance towards the coast: the new deep-sea port. An international airport will soon be up as well. Regions and cities take generations to develop. They undergo a gradual transformation. Here, one day this will be a cluster of villages and small towns and the next a leading economic trading hub in South Asia. Currently we're stuck in the time warp, which is a mildly disorienting place and time to be in. We haven't been able to find a packet of crisps in two towns and yet a global sporting event is taking place here. In 2018 they might be hosting the Commonwealth Games. Nothing has felt less like a hub of anywhere, though that is not to fault it. There is an endearing, admirable straightforwardness about life - wake up, eat, work, eat, sleep. People smile and at the same time look on with mild suspicion.

These big plans for Hambantota, says the head of the local chamber of commerce (sparkling website incidentally) Azmi Thassim, go back years. "The idea for the sea-port has been in place for years and the airport too, though that was for a neighbouring district. It has been accelerated and implemented since the president came to office, and that has been an advantage for us." It is a familiar, if flawed, regional development tale.

China is heavily involved, not only in the deep sea port but also with the stadium and airport. One foreign correspondent based in Colombo says up to 50,000 Chinese workers have been in the region for five years. More than ever these days, the Chinese have only to sneeze for the world to start deconstructing and analysing it as the next stop in their domination of the world. But given Hambantota's geographical proximity to key Indian Ocean shipping routes, it was only ever a matter of time before someone came along and utilised it properly. Those who don't believe in great strategic games say simply that an alternative economic base to Colombo is being developed and Hambantota, by dint of producing the president, is it right now. http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/123400/123401.2.jpg

Chinese engineers and workers helped build the stadium © ESPNcricinfo Ltd Enlarge

 

Cricket development in the subcontinent

The link between politics and cricket in Sri Lanka, as Mike Marqusee observed in his cricket travelogue War Minus the Shooting, is more explicit than elsewhere. Here senior politicians have been board heads and the sports minister's say in team selection changes only by degree.

Politicians build stadiums in their own names in their own districts. And stadiums and grounds in general remain the strongest currency of cricket development in the subcontinent. The idea is simple: build a stadium, in an underdeveloped region preferably, and soon players will emerge. If one player becomes a biggish name, then further, continuing development of that region is set. It has been one of the major steps in democratising cricket of the region, of spreading it and tapping talent in areas untouched. And it has worked, in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka Cricket's (SLC) chairman Somachandra De Silva says they have brought cricket to a village. "Because in the last two decades it was all Colombo. We also have plans to build an academy for youngsters of Hambantota and the adjoining areas, and also a indoor stadium. After the World Cup we will hold a Test at Hambantota when Australia tour in July this year, and also one or two one-day in that series. There are also plans to host World Twenty20 matches here."

There is inevitably cynicism about such ventures. According to estimates, the stadium in Hambantota has cost nearly US$ 9 million to build so naturally there is plenty of talk of corruption and kickbacks. The previous sports minister famously called SLC the third most corrupt institute in the country - after police and education apparently - and you'll find enough locals who agree with that assessment. But just to see the stadium and to know the story of its construction wipes away some of the doubts, especially the concerns about its readiness before the tournament began.

The driving force behind the idea was the president's son, Namal Rajapaksa. The sweat came from the Chinese engineers (them again), the army (which seems to permeate through life here as it does in Pakistan), the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, which built the two main buildings, and the SLC, who funded it. It stands now as a shining testament to Just Getting Things Done. A series of photographs of the various stages of its construction, taken by Lt Colonel Shanaka Ratnayake, the project coordinating officer, tell an extraordinary tale. Only by the end of 2008 was paperwork for the project completed - itself a gargantuan, bureaucratic task - and clearances obtained. At that stage, where now stands the stadium, was jungle. The actual work began on May 19, 2009, by which time land had been cleared.

Growing grass for the playing area was the most difficult task; though you wouldn't be able to tell, Hambantota is a dry, arid region. But with a fancy sprinkler system in place and help from the national curator, brown turned green towards the close of 2009. The ICC inspection team arrived for a first visit in February 2010, at which point there was only the playing field and nothing else.

Only after that did construction of the buildings begin, but even by June, the grandstand was barely a structure. Pakistan A played a four-day game against Sri Lanka A in September, while construction was ongoing. Unusually heavy rains hampered work severely so that by December, just two months before the first match, nothing about the ground suggested it was remotely near completion. http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/123300/123399.2.jpg

This time last year, the stadium's grandstand was barely a structure © ESPNcricinfo Ltd Enlarge

 

Two photographs, on December 17, 2010 and January 24, 2011, when the ICC's inspection teams were openly concerned, are particularly revealing of the acceleration of work. In the first is the grandstand as it might look in the process of a demolition. In the second, from a distance admittedly, it appears complete. The army's manpower in those final days, says Ratnayake, was crucial. On February 20, just 21 months after construction began, the Mahinda Rajapaksa stadium was ready, a jewel from out of nothing.

What will come of this jewel? Thassim is unsure, as are others, of the viability of the enterprise. The teams have stayed in hotels 70kms from the stadium. It is not yet an easy place for fans to access. Players have found the distances too great. Tellingly, neither Australia nor New Zealand from the group played matches here. "I was very happy and proud for such a stadium," Thassim says. "But the viability of this, personally, I feel it could become a burden on resources."

The whole idea of Hambantota as an international commercial - and sporting - hub seems to be getting ahead of itself, of flying before it has started walking. It is audacious, but also flimsy, heavily dependent on political largesse and foreign investment.

Businessmen and traders question whether the local private sector has the capacity to cope with the development. They insist that it must eventually become more involved in that growth. The local population has begun to benefit. Land prices have gone up, more local produce is being sold as more people visit. Big multinational firms, such as India's auto giant Bajaj, are setting up plants here, boosting employment. But real, deeper benefits and change are still years away, maybe another 15 or so.

They might produce an international cricketer before that though.

[G-Unit]

T20 World Cup: SA vs Zim

 

The white Zim cricketers could not sing their anthem.

Strange to see.

 

GO PROTEAS!

 

In fairness to them, I don't think everyone knows the words to "I Love You, Bob". Even if it has a catchy tune....

[fabes]

The boys are looking sharp in the field today

['Dale]

 

 

In fairness to them, I don't think everyone knows the words to "I Love You, Bob". Even if it has a catchy tune....

 

I think if one represent your country in an international space, one should sing its anthem.

['Dale]

Politics aside, Zim at a weak 58/5 after 13.