Australia Vs New Zealand match Review

          Basically a disappointment.  The match started after rain and the pitch was grassy, both made the conditions ideal for pace bowling and Australian team which basically relies on its pace bowling, after winning the toss very wisely asked New Zealand to bat first. New Zealand team was unable to form any partnership and wickets kept on falling at regular intervals. Australian bowlers were outstanding with their line and length. The Aussie strategy also payed off as Sun came out and the pitch started to dry off  near the end of New Zealand innings. When Aussies came to bat the conditions were comparatively comfortable for batting. The Kiwi bowling strategy to pitch the ball up as we mentioned in our review of their match against Kenya failed and created no problem whatsoever for Aussies who were comfortably able to finish the match in 34th over.

South Africa Vs West Indies Match Review

          An intresting match to watch. South Africa won the toss and decided to give West Indies a chance to bat first. South Africa like many other teams in this world cup employed the strategy of bowling with a spinner during the first power play, which instantly payed off and they managed to get Gayle out. Smith and Bravo took over from there and built up a descent partnership, however after the partnership was broken the West Indian team failed to produce good partnerships and as a result West Indian team was not even able to complete their quota of 50 overs and were all out at 222 runs. South African team showed very good bowling discipline and field, their choice to emphasis more on spinners than pace bowlers was very reasonable. The major problem during the West Indian batting was their consistency and it was noted that after each of the two partnerships which held their ground for a little while there were two or three consecutive wickets going down which was disappointing.

          When South Africa came to bat, Smith appeared to be out of touch and Amla and Kallis fell at under 20 runs. It appeared at that stage that the match will be a very close one, however AB de Villiers was outstanding on the pitch it seemed as he was batting on some other pitch. De Villiers and Smith  comfortably took South Africa to a winning position. One point to mention here that South Africa did not utilize their batting Power Play, which in our opinion they should have taken at 30th over to finish the match early and win with better Net Run Rate. There was a bit of Drama as rain came over but in the end De Villiars managed his century and South Africa won the match.

Pakistan Vs Kenya Match Review

          This can be termed as a warm up match for Pakistan cricket team who has been through a lot of drama recently. Pakistan won the toss and decided to bat first, they had a typical Pakistani start as wickets start to fall at the very beginning of their innings. The openers seemed to play very carefully but there is no fun in being cautious and defensive if you cannot save your wicket. The middle order however performed pretty well and there were number of partnerships to stabilize Pakistani innings followed by a lot of fire power in the end. Over the time we have witnessed when Pakistan team is going well its a treat to watch their last 10 overs. It is worth mentioning here that in the 5 overs of batting power play Pakistan cricket team scored 70 runs. Kenyan team however was average in the field and pathetic in bowling dicipline. The bowling performance of Kenyans was not worthy of an international team. They gave over 40 valuable runs in wide balls which in itself  is a world record. 

          Pakistani bowlers especially spinners performed very well and they bowled Kenya out at 112 runs. No one from Kenyan side except Obyua was able to stand his ground for long, wickets kept on falling with Pakistani captain leading the bowling attack with 5 wickets and match was an easy win for Pakistan crickert team.

England Vs Netherlands Match Review

          This was a worth watching match with a lot of Drama. Netherlands won the toss and decided to bat first. We soon found out that Netherlands have a very stable batting order. They batted sensibly especially RN ten Doeschae who was immaculate in both batting and bowling. The England did not show much spark in their bowling except for Swan who bowled exceedingly well. It was very amusing to see English players field like rookies and especially during the last stages of the match where fielders seemed to have no clue of where they should be and were strolling in ground like a loose heard. It was a poor show of command and control and an example of weak captaincy on part of Strauss. One of the reasons in our opinion for such preposterous behaviour by English team was that they did not expected the Dutch team to perform so well and were not mentally prepared for such onslaught. Nevertheless the Dutch team surprised everyone by their batting and at the end of their batting innings we thought that they might even win the match. 

          When the English came to bat they seemed much more composed and started like professionals, may be because the Dutch bowling was not nearly as good as their batting. It was a good change to see Peterson opening for English. Andrew Strauss showed his class while batting. The Dutch in the field were also brilliant but what they lacked was a good bowling attack. They mostly have medium pacers with almost same style of bowling which created no difficulty whatsoever for English batsmen, on the contrary it allowed them to settle. Moreover during later portion of their bowling inning Dutch seemed less keen to restrict singles which is almost never a good idea. The bowlers did not ball according to their field placement, it was amusing to see bowlers bowling on the leg side with fielders on off side. Weak bowling on part of Dutch and English batting depth in our opinion cost Dutch the match.

Australia Vs Zimbabwe Match Review

          This match was probably the best of  matches yet played in this world cup. We saw tremendous effort put in by the Zimbabwean side during both phases of the match. The Zimbabwean team opted to attack with spinners which payed off therefore they restricted Australian side to an achievable target. The Aussies batted first and started extra cautiously which was unnecessary. They achieved their 100 runs by 26th over which is very late considering the pace of batting these days. Moreover the Aussie batsmen save Ponting seemed reluctant to play spinners and at one stage it was felt that they may not even reach 250. . A lot of credit goes to the captaincy of Zimbabwean captain who managed his team very well against one of the best teams of world. The Zimbabwean on the whole performed very energetically in the field. It was however disappointing to see Aussies go extra defensive against spinners. Their wickets kept on falling at regular interval in-spite of such careful strategy. This kind of strategy may not work against better bowling sides.

           When it comes to Aussie bowling they just proved the their captain's statement which he had made before the world cup. They showed us what a good pace bowling attack can do no matter what the pitch conditions are. Zimbabwean team struggled with their batting. There were some immaculate shots played  and individual players put up a good fight but overall not partnership stood long enough to make a difference. The Aussies in the field were outstanding.  It was treat for eyes to see the fielding of both the teams. Overall it was a technically sound match which exceeded our expectations though the results were pre-expected. One last thing which is worth mentioning here is that unlike the previous matches there were a lot of not out decisions changed during the review which shows the importance of introduction of this rule to one day internationals.