A Nightmare

[apoorv_khurasia]

Since most of you guys are from US/CAN/South America I don't hope this post will mean much but.....

Cricket is to India what football is to rest/most of the world. People are mad about it and its a national sentiment. The ICC Cricket World Cup began this week and India played its first match against Bangladesh yesterday and lost badly. Now for those of you who don't follow this game let me tell you that it is something like Trinidad and Tobago defeating Spain or France (no offence intended to Bangladesh fans). Now this is a nightmare.

Similarly Ireland (another newcomer) has defeated Pakistan (another bigweight and cricket passionate nation). When the World Cup began people criticized that these "weaker" teams will spoil the sport by just offering them to the butcher. But things seem to be way different. Although not the case for Pakistan but Bangladesh literally butchered India in that match (we did not even play the full 50 overs!!!). We are all very mad about it and do hope that India does not loose to Bermuda (another newcomer) or SriLanka. Because if we do then we get knocked out.

Besides all the nationalism I have financial benefits too if India wins. For every sixer (analogous to a homerun in BaseBall except that here the number of runs are fixed to 6) that India hits I get some free talktime on my mobile connection!!! So far India has just hit one six and I am hoping that they make up for that ().

[apoorv_khurasia]

So India managed to defeat a newcomer (I hate to use the term minnows) by a huge margin so are not out of the cup. By the way they hit 18 sixes in that match so I have a lot of "free" talktime on my mobile connection.

Still India has to defeat SriLanka which should not be that difficult.

Meanwhile the cup is going pretty boring as there are no interesting matches going on. Guess the next round will be better as only test playing teams would have made into it (besided that Ireland would be worth watching).

Keep watching (only applicable to Cricketing nations )

[Roxoff]

lol

You sound like an England football fan during the footy world cups ('how can we lose to bloody Wales...' ).

The glory of a World Cup in any sport is that those teams that are considered 'minnows' will soon grow up and challenge the established powers. This is what makes the sport exciting. On the face of it, Crickets world cup seem sto be geared up to let the big test nations do battle in the final eight, I think it's much more interesting that some of these nations are now starting to fall to other countries.

If your country is knocked out early but considers itself a cricketing powerhouse then it needs to learn its lessons from the tournament and come back a lot stronger and more determined next time.

[apoorv_khurasia]

Thats why I hate to use the term minnows and use the term "newcomers" instead. I remember Kenya first played its world cup in 1996 and were trashed badly by nearly everyone, but in 2003 (last world cup) they made into the semi-finals!!! Similarly you see Bangladesh (1st appearence 1999) managed to defeat India this time (India won 1983, made it to finals 2003, semi-finals 1996....etc) and Ireland (first appearence 2007) has defeated Pakistan (winners 1992, finals 1999)!

Thats with the history but in Cricket results are as unpredictable as a cricket's life (hence the name) so no one knows whats next.

P.S:- cricket's name is not originated from Cricket (as I have discovered now on wiki)

[Vibubhav]

Yes this one has been an upsetting world up till now, I am hoping India has more than one match left! In fact I was hoping India will win the world cup itself but had to come down to this more than one match thing. Yet the last match was fun, India going over 400 and all.

And yes, newcomers is a better word, like I am newcomer to linux! I'll learn with time! So will the new teams!

[apoorv_khurasia]

I am an Indian but India winning the cup....no way!!! Only way India is winning the cup is when RSA and Aussies withdraw from the tournament. Seriously India can offer no competition to these teams given our bowling and fielding standards. I hope you do realize that batting alone cannot make you win a match. If such a team wins the cup then its a shame. Still India winning the cup is more than a welcome dream to me.

[Vibubhav]

Yes that's right. Watching the Aussies specially while they play is a real treat. And they win very convincingly. India needs to be a complete team too. But it's not a shame if they win really, India has its days. In the last world cup, if I remember it didn't lose to anyone but Australia.

[Apollo]

hahah Cricket fans! One game that I cannot make sense of. Maybe if I was exposed to it more, then I might be able to pick up some more rules. Fans of all sports speak a common language however, especially National Sports. I remember last year, in the World Junior Hockey Championships, The USA lost to... Belarus (for the bronze medal)! That shocked everyone who had even heard of the game of hockey before. It was the Belarussian's first medal in the event, and of course, Canada got the Gold . Still though, it shows that you can't take the seemingly minnows as you referred to them lightly, in any sport, rather it be cricket or hockey. Hard times for fans when you fall to a much weaker nation though eh.

[Lakshmipathi]

india Knocked out of WC 2007