FCKING BLOG

Three of the four favorites for the Champions Trophy are out in the first round itself. South Africa found themselves clinically outplayed, Sri Lanka’s lack of experience outside of home showed while India, already limping with injuries, stumbled in a crucial match and ultimately crashed out of the tournament.

New Zealand kept going despite injuries to key players and England surprised the opposition by actually competing. Pakistan played a calculated game and seized their opportunities while Australia played like the last 8 months never happened.

We will let sleeping dogs lie and have their effigies burnt (in India)/ performances reviewed (in saner parts of the world) and concentrate on your team for the semis.

Australia: Ponting has played with venom and vengeance. Hussey has supported him well and while Watson hasn’t scored any runs at the top, he has chipped in with wickets. Mitchell Johnson bailed them out against West Indies.

England: Andrew Strauss has been spot on with the captaincy and Collingwood has finally put in some effort. Owais Shah & Eoin Morgan have contributed in bursts while the bowlers Onions, Anderson & Broad have been a revelation in discipline.

New Zealand: Guptill & McCullum have taken up responsibility at the top of the batting order and that has seen New Zealand get those good starts. Vettori  & Franklin have been vital with their all round contributions while Bond has reveled as opening bowler. Aaron Redmond’s inclusion in place of Jesse Ryder ought to strengthen their batting.

Pakistan: Mohammad Yousuf & Shoaib Malik have been solid in the middle while Umar Akmal & Misbah have been finishing the innings. The bowling is strong with the return of Asif to the existing line up  of Aamer, Naved & Gul. Afridi & Ajmal have been economical & dangerous.

Considering that Australia recently thrashed England 6-1 and that Pakistan take on their favorite bunny side NZ in the semis, it looks like it’s gonna be an Australia vs Pakistan final. If they learnt anything from their last match, the Australians will not let down even when on top because it doesn’t take too much for the Pakistanis to go on a roll.

Group B of the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy is a story of consistent underachievers. Between the four of them they have one World Cup victory, two Champions Trophy winners and a joint CT winner. And the millions of semi final and final defeats it took them to get those results.

I.B. #Eine: South Africa
The favourites of the tournament. South Africa have a mountainous pile of reasons why they can win this tournament. Balancing all of them singularly, and rather spectacularly on the other arm of the see saw is their proven Inglourious Chokers tag. But this time something seems different. Will it be their year?
Inglourious South Afrikaners: Jean Paul Duminy, Roelof van der Merwe, Wayne Parnell & AB de Villiers.

I.B. #Zwei: Sri Lanka
The most naturally talented side, they have Angelo Mathews & Ajantha Mendis winning them matches by rolling over of the arm and flicking of the fingers respectively. They need their young batsmen to put in those big match winning knocks. Thilina Kandamby is already staking his claim so could this be the tournament in which Chamara Kapugedara lives upto his promise?
Inglourious Lankans:Tilakaratne Dilshan, Thilina Kandamby, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekara.

I.B. #Drei: New Zealand
Any tournament they go in, NZ are expected to make it to the next round. More often than not this is as the result of the inconsistency of others rather than due to their own abilities. And they’ve made it to the second rounds and semi finals of many tournaments but haven’t had much luck going beyond that. The one time they did get through in 2000, they won the Champions Trophy. This time around too, the Black Caps have a lot of firepower but the question remains, will it go off?
Inglourious Kiwis: Shane Bond, Ross Taylor & Jesse Ryder.

I.B. #Vier: England
The most inglourious story of them all. More than anyone else, England are painfully aware of their own shortcomings in LOI cricket. In the past year they’ve beat a supremely disinterested West Indies & tired South Africa. But they lost very badly to a fighting NZ, a rampaging India & almost 7-0 to a vengeful Australia. To add to their misery, their best ODI players KP & Freddie are out with injuries and not playing this tournament.
Inglourious British: Luke Wright, Joe Denly, James Anderson & Graeme Swann.

The pitch had plenty to offer for the fast bowlers so he was obviously delighted when he won the toss having yelled "Headssssssssssssss!".

Group A of the Champions Trophy went from being the Group of Death to being the Group of Bullies Against a Hapless Kid in the time it takes the WICB to mess up talks with a players organization.

No, seriously.

Here’s a preview for the Champions Trophy.

In the canary yellow corner, Australia!!!:
Defending champions Australia look like they have had a good year but they’ve not. They have wins against NZ, WI, Pakistan & Bangladesh but the one good team they faced (South Africa) beat them both home and away.

Thankfully, in the lead up to this tournament they’ve put all that behind them and are on the verge of handing England a 7-0 drubbing in England. Which makes this tournament more open. Which is what it friggin needs to be.
TNT (well, hopefully) : Brett Lee, Cameron White, Mitchell Johnson.

In the cornered tigers corner, Pakistan!!!!!!!!
Very short on match practice but that didn’t stop from winning a World Cup a few months ago. The ODI series against Australia in Dubai & the one in Sri Lanka saw them go downby the same margin 3-2.

The bowling has been pretty good but it’s the batting collapses that have hurt them a lot. Afridi 2.0 might explode again so that’s something you can look forward to.
TNT: The Akmals Umar & Kamran, Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi & Mohammed Aamer.

Mentally and to a large part physically at home because they couldn’t agree upon a corner, West Indies (Board Presidents XI) !!!!
These guys are a second string side. No amount of ‘Official Team: Certified by WICB’ stickers are gonna change that. The first line up had not exactly set the world on fire in the past season.

All this line up did was carry on the tradition against the one team the original line up could have beat. Not much hope. Any upsets will be absolutely thrilling though.
TNT( More like damp gunpowder, really): Devon Smith, Dave Bernard & Travis Dowlin.

In an undisclosed corner, India!!!!!
Strongly tipped to win but the only thing holding them back is their history in multilateral tournament finals, the pace attacks inability to think, the brain freeze against the short ball, the all body freeze when fielding and the undisclosed injuries.

But they’ve won 5 of their last series played across SL, NZ, India & WI with all these handicaps. On current form, expect them to make it to the finals.
TNT: Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra.

The Champions Trophy has been around. Now it has come around.

We will not choken dies tyme.Those daes are behynd us, now wie are wêreld bieters & we will beet evreeone & not chok

The purists have lost. They cried, they whined, they articulated eloquently, threatened not to respect it and stuck their head in a hole in the ground thinking it would go away.

But it didn’t.

The ICC pimped it up, now it’s a $4 million prize money bomb with a two week fuse and only the real gunpowder test teams playing.

Except for the West Indies, they’re resting their real guns for the 2010 T20 jamboree. It’s the only format that matters and sending the replacement squirt gun squad is an act which puts forth just what they think about the only ICC trophy they’ve won in 25 years.

There’s just a week to go for the tournament to begin and the fantasy games are up on most sites. I’m giddy with excitement to see Australia not go into a tournament as overwhelming favourites. To see South Africa, India & Sri Lanka pose a legitimate threat based on their consistent cricket over the past season.

To see Pakistan as a genuine wildcard after their World T20 triumph, to see Bangladesh go into a tournament with confidence drawn from wins for a change.

As for England, NZ & WI, the only place to go from here is up and we’d all love it if that happens. Because then this stupid, needless tournament will truly be put to rest.

With all the injuries, contract disputes & losses of form, building a team hasn’t been as hard it usually is. I’ve put my money on my lot. Is your team ready?