Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and England have emerged from this year's CT with a win and two losses... and of the rest, NZ can count themselves lucky to emerge with 2 wins (and move forward despite one absolutely shocking game)... and SA move forward despite one game they will definitely want to forget.

The trails of woe read as follows:

England were all out for 125 in 37 overs. India stuttered, losing 6 top order wickets.

NZ failed to see out 46 overs before SA capitulated for 108: Fleming and Smith were the only players to get past 26... with 3 of the NZ top 6 and 4 of the SA top 6 failing to make double figures.

NZ then posted just 165 with 5 of the top 7 failing to make double figures. Sri Lanka made this look poor, overtaking the total in just 36 overs.

England stuttered to 169 and were dismissed in 45 overs, leaving Australia to romp home.

SA Posted 219 in a bizarre innings: Vaas returned figures of 10-3-16-2... suggesting 119 would be a good score, but Malinga (not the most expensive of the bowlers used) returned figures of 9-0-53-4... suggesting 300+ was feasible! Sri Lanka subsided to 141 all out, failing to see out 40 overs (and banking just 16 runs from Tharanga, Jayasuria, Sangakkara and Atapattu).

Pakistan then collapsed to just 89 in response to South Africa's 213.

At the end of it all, the three sub-continental sides who play such ridiculous amounts of ODI cricket and are supposedly masters of the format (rating it as highly as Test cricket) cannot really boast of any better result than England's solitary win against the West Indies... and Australia once again look a class apart.

Any lessons to be learnt? Methinks the key one is that micky-mouse cricket is a remarkably difficult game to dominate without the sheer class of the Aussies!!!

And some practice on pitches where the bowlers get more than just an ounce of help.

In fairness, most of the matches were dominated by the side who bowled and batted well. Bowling well was simply the bowlers being able to get the consistently in the right areas and not necessarily delivering 10 wonder balls. Batting well simply consisted of one major partnership >80, not necessarily all of your specialist bats making big scores.

The main failures (batting wise) for the failing [and the flat-pitch dominant sub-continent] sides was that they couldn't bat through the new ball and keep enough wickets in hand or they couldn't get one decent partnership together until it was too late (in terms of batsmen at the crease and their ability to score). With their bowling it was just poor control that did it - dropping pace for the quicks would have been a great idea in the qualifiers, control and guaranteed movement should have been the incentives and full pace could be used in the middle overs when the ball generally straightened up (also bowlers would have got into some rhythm and have a better chance of increased control at the higher pace). Spin bowlers weren't given much to work with on most of the pitches but any side that used a damp ball as an excuse should get a slap on the wrists (certainly before this passing weekend) because there was no dew to be had!

Apart from that, everyone batted and bowled really well - top stuff!

__________________
Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

To some extent I do agree with you, however; Pakistan team's situation was exceptional IMO. As I mentioned in another post, this is been mind boggling to me that the fate of a team actually depends on the groundsman work. The wicket provided to PAK vs SA match was horrible for batsmen and a heaven for pace bowlers. And guess what Pakistan lacked in the squad? Pace bowlers of course !!
The same quality wicket wouldve been provided to both teams, if Pakistan had Shoaib or Asif in the squad? I dont know. But what I do know is that the local groundsman can very easily be influenced by the local authorities to prepare a wicket that suits one particular aspect of the play, it may not gurantee a desired result but will definitely increase the chances of getting one. I am not whining here but just curious if ICC has to intervene and set up rules and regulations to provide standard wickets to all team playing in an equal oppurtunity environment?

__________________
Had cricket been a religion, Imran Khan would've been the god.

I don't understand your point? - you are talking about CT failures, remember the last CT, the finalist were England and the West Indies.

So it can't be said that the Aussies have dominated this Trophy, not even this years - yet.

I think also a factor in this particular competition, I am not 100% sure any country takes it all that seriously.

__________________
Ern

__________________
Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.