WC 2007 - Possible winners and the surprise packages

All teams have started assembling in the respective airports to leave for the Caribbean and there is tremendous excitement all over the place with many possible contendersfor the coveted trophy. I would place my bet on the following four teams in that order to qualify for the Semis. Hope the Indian team proves me wrong.

No 1 - South Africa - They have always been the deserving winners who choked at the post every time in the semi final or due to the vagaries of the weather, but this time they seem to be stronger, have the magic big hitter Kemp to watch out for and the ever green Pollock and the ever smiling 'pallan' Ntini to back up the easily best fielding side of the tournament

No 2 Sri Lankans - They are fully fit, raring to go with no injuries and the veteran Jayasurya, Murali and Vaas all in tremendous nick ably supported by the best wicket keeper batsmen of the tournament, Sangakkara(On today's form I would rate him better than Gilchrist since he can play any type of innings as the situation demands)

No 3 Australia - They looked unbeatable only few weeks ago and suddenly lost 6 out of 7 matches and with it all their ego and arrogance and little bit of confidence. Ageing McGrath, Hayden, injured Symonds and a knocked out Bret Lee confound to their problems. But still they have both the Clarks, irrepressible Ponting who has a 100% record in WC and probably one of the best finishers the game would ever see in the near future-Michael Hussey

No 4 Newzeland- They are my dark horse favorites and I would root for them any day - Oram (he says he will play even if that means HIS BROEKN FINGER HAS TO BE AMPUTATED AFTER THE GAMES) Taylor, Bond, Marshall and of course Fleming along with some great finishers like Macmillan, Macullum and Styris can on their day beat any team in the world

I would take up some brilliant key players in my next analysis

RK

World Cup 2007 Trivia 1

First in the series of WC trivia. Five clues to get the answers with total of 10 points and with every passing clue 2 points are deducted .Hope those who answer are frank enough to admit the clue in which they find the answer and rank themselves. Answers in two days as usual with the results.

To start with this is bit easy

1. He played International cricket from 1965-1983 and in two world cups
2. He was also an excellent fieldsman and captained his country in two successive world cups
3. Even though he was a great bowler he had to fight for his place in the team every match and was even a 12th man after only leading his country in the earlier match
4. After retirement he has virtually been part of the game in all forms as referee, manager, umpire etc
5. Give me..... and I will won against any country was the famous quote of a renowned opposite side captain

RK

World Cup Quiz - 1

As promised here we go with the first set of 10 questions of WC quiz 2007. Each of the questions carry a point for the right answer and 1 -ve for the wrong'un of course . Answers for each quiz would follow in two days and the winner announced online(hope there are enough participants and hence pass on link to other cricket crazy folks). Questions are not that easy and hence you might need to dig deep to in to own statistics database and take it as a challenge. Needless to say those googling and seeing answers of fellow blogs before answering would be playing spoil sport

1. Which South African has won most MOM awards at WC. Clue-he is/was a devastating all rounder
2. Who has the most MOM awards in the WC -no clues bit easy
3. Who are the two captains who hold the the best record for highest success rate in WC till date-one is retired and the other is playing
4. Who was the youngest Pakistani player to have played in a world cup and which tournament - Even today he is the nightmare for one Indian bowler
5. Who holds the record for the highest number of WC appearances- He is a current cricket commentator
6. Which Indian player has scored the most number of boundaries in one world cup match- clue- incidentally this player has also scored the highest number of sixes in WC overall
7. Which Indian player has the dubious distinction of most number of ducks by an Indian in WC- surprise-he is a well known dasher
8. Who is the only Sri Lankan to have carried his bat through in an WC match
9. Who holds the record for the highest tenth wicket partnership in a WC match- That was indeed a memorable match involving the calypso kings
10. Who holds the record for most number of catches in a single innings in WC by a non wicket keeper-again is an Indian not in this WC

RK

Back again-It's world cup fever

I Just decided to take a detour for the last 2 months or so and provide a welcome break to the few of you who had the time to browse through my blog once in a while. Also gave me some time to refresh my self and hopefully come back with a bang!
Can't help it-it's cricket fever again with the world cup round the corner and I promise to bring out some quiz contests, trivia’s, interesting articles on the teams, match analysis, your predictions on daily matches as well as the names of daily contest winners of course with no prizes. Hope you would enzoy

RK