Ekantt Views

Billion of fans across the globe were googling Manchester weather for hours. It was India vs Pakistan after all. ICC and organizers were busy ensuring that a proper cricket match takes place even if it was a curtailed game. Social media was abuzz. News channels on both sides of the border were dishing out heated debates, game plan, team selection, recent history and CT17 final in particular. This is a game that catches the attention of other cricketing nations as well. Not sure what the tweet count was but must have been significantly high. One of my friends was just in the awe of viewership stats. So, Sunday morning: Toss time. Sarfaraz wins the toss and elects to field. Their legend has just advised them to put runs on the board. CT2017 final, remember? Runs on the board... No, they want India to bat first.  Let us be fair. DLS is looming in the afternoon session. Rain breaks. Wet outfield. Pitch that might not have been well prepared.  It was not a complete...

I thought I would be able to write after every game. Kind of hard after an entire day of work. I watch highlights and glance through reactions on social media throughout the day. I must add that I  am constantly in touch with live commentary on my phone apps. Washouts may create some interesting permutations and combinations in the closing stages . I would have loved to see the game between India and NZ . I was predicting NZ win. Who knows we may see  these two teams fighting it out semis or the final. Friday saw England taking WI. WI started well. Not the most fluent of starts but a pretty decent one. Gayle has not quite stormed in yet. Hope is struggling. WI promised to breach 250 at one point. England bowled smartly. Hetmyer started well and looked to make a huge impact. Pooran did make significant impact though. Dre Russ also did not shine. Root did create magic with his bowling. He batted even better. This was a complete masterclass from Root. No wonder he is consid...

This World Cup  has already seen highest number of washouts. Teams sharing points may not be the best reflection of their ability but they have to accept the standings. Cricket in UK will always have rain as key component of how table will look like. Another reason for every team to treat every game very vital. Wednesday saw Australia taking on Pakistan. Their clash in WC 2015 unfolded one of the best spells of fast bowling. It was one of thes best ever in a World Cup. In fact that is the only memory that I have of last World Cup. Wahab Riaz produced one of the finest spells of quick bowling. It was mesmerizing. Okay let us come back to 2019:) Australia started well batting first. Finch has been in fine touch and stamped his authority on proceedings in no time. Warner has not looked at his fluent best but has spent time in the middle in previous games and probably has also been  given the role of sheet anchor. They were helped by lacklustre fielding. Finch got going and ...

First things first. Friday  game would have seen Pakistan play SL. No toss. No game points split. We would not know which team got luckier by gaining one point here. I would have predicted Pakistan taking those 2 points. We will see how that impacts this race to top 4. Saturday England vs Bangladesh England are playing different brand of cricket for  quite some time now. There has been a sharper focus on whiteball cricket in past 30 months with only one goal. Winning tge50 over title. Jason Roy Butler have been allowed to play with their natural style of batting. They have wasted no time to draf Archer in this side. They want Root to be the glue of this batting order. No major bowling workload for Stokes unless it is absolutely needed in a demanding match situation. All of this was on display on Saturday. Moeen Ali who is almost a certainty in home games but they decided to sharpen the pace attack by dropping him. These are very clear signs that they are determined . It show...

Australia vs WI. Every game that WI will play they will have a chance to win . They need to win the key moments in the contest. They need to hold on to the momentum a bit longer. They need to keep the pressure on for lengthier patches of the game. That is what this match should give them in terms of key ingredients of the recipe for success. They started well ... really well. They had Australia reeling. 40 for 4 to 288. Incredible recovery. They should have stopped Australia below 260 ... surely. They couldn’t. Coulter Nile gave Australia a total that didn’t seem possible when 6th wicket fell down. Smith was the glue for Australia. WI bowled pretty well especially during the first half of Australian batting. WI started alright but kept faltering at key moments. Dre Russ couldn’t really stay long. 10 more minutes of his batting would have an earlier finish and different result for WI. WI has to look after him . His bowling workload needs to be managed very smartly by Holder. I have sa...

India vs SA . SA coming to this match after2 defeats and with the realization that Steyn is not going to be part of this tournament any further had quite a task at hand. They ran in to Bumrah, easily one of the best in white ball cricket at the moment if not the best. After recovering from initial blows Chahal bamboozled them. 227 was not a very threatening total but given the conditions could have asked some serious questions and it did. Rabada leading the pack created some very nervous moments. Rohit Sharma struggled but hung around and reaped the benefits. Dhawan and Virat could not. KL RAHUL did have a short innings but he is definitely a long term solution to #4 spot. MSD did his part but it wasPandya who came to finish things off. New finisher in chief. Rohit Sharma has that lazy elegance but he is a serious white ball batsman . This innings may not have been his fluent best but innings like these and time spent in middle often helps. This is a long tournament and this innings w...

In one of my earlier posts I did mention that SL and Afghanistan will have the basement battle in points table. This is no disrespect to SL but they are downhill for a lengthy period of time with no sign of arresting the slide downwards. Afghanistan on the other hand has the capability to play competitive cricket. As it turned out , a good game of  cricket. Although it was rain curtailed, it was not a dull contest. SL emerged winners. Their middle order at the moment is feeble to say the least. Directionless as well. I can see lots of changes happening in SL cricket after the  completion of this tournament. They were able to win largely due to their top3  and  a very dependable Malinga. Afghanistan has made some big strides in international cricket but I don’t really expect them to pose any major worries. With that being said, they are not easy walkovers either. They have young bowlers who are only going to improve in the days to come. With more and regular crick...

Remember 1992 World Cup. Each team played every other team in the competition.  CWC 2019 is Going to replicate the same format. A lot has changed in 50 over cricket since 1992. Today’s game was between Pakistan who had a pretty ordinary game against WI and England in red hot form and they are the home side. Pretty settled unit.  To me this game is going to be a key milestone in the journey of this tournament. We got a score of 348 by a team batting first and it was under a very real threat of being chased down successfully. No centuries in first 5 games, we got 2 in the second half of this game. The tournament is wide open. No easy games.   Many pundits will have their predictions wrong and will probably have their punditry scrutinized. Am I prepared to keep going with my predictions... yes😊. Pakistan played smart cricket today. Sarfaraz used his spinners quite well. Jason Roy got out cheaply. Hafeez chipped in with useful wickets. Amir and Wahab kept t...

Bangladesh were invited to bat by SA at the oval . SA were hoping that they would read the conditions better . They played against England in the opener and were prepared to chase the total. Bangladesh surprised them. Bangladesh surprising top teams is not surprising any more. They are looking to make a very strong statement in white ball cricket. They believe they can defeat any side on big stage. This is not an upset or shock defeat for SA. They were up against a side that has put a lot of heart and effort in getting there. Openers started well. Shakib and Rahim built on that platform. SA looked to stop Ban at 315ish at one stage but some clean strikes in final 3 overs provided the necessary flourish. 330 on board . Good total. As I said earlier in my post last  night, this will be a close game. SA may not have looked in control during the chase but did not really let the target completely out of sight. Probably no one wants to talk about it but no body comes close to ABD in th...

Saturday. June1 . 2 Games. Let us begin with NZvsSL. SriLanka is still sliding downhill. Did not even come close to posing any challenge. Malinga  or Matthews can not create any magic or miracle. Yes this was their first game in this tournament. Yes this is a long tournament. Yes they were playing against a quality side but they still needed to show up. Realistically I don’t see them winning many games. All 4 games so far  have reflected comfortable victory for winning side but SL looked weakest among the losing ones. NZ would be happy to take 2 easy points and would know that stiffer challenges are ahead of them.  Australia vs Afghanistan proved to be a bit more competitive than the earlier one in the day. David Warner likes the big stage and definitely wants to make a statement. I will not be surprised if he is among top scorers of this tournament. He surely wants to make up for the lost time. Him and Smith will be very keen to give it their all. Maxwell too will...