Champions Trophy, Group 'B', June 3-12

[rich1uk]

Good for India's NRR I guess. So I suppose they get to play BD and England get SL/Pak?

yeah first tie-breaker is number of wins, then NRR, so with 2 wins it'll come down to NRR

[Arthur Crabtree]

Cheers. All over. SA seem to leave a lot of these competitions as hopelessly as England normally do.

[yuppie]

Cheers. All over. SA seem to leave a lot of these competitions as hopelessly as England normally do.

SA promise so much, deliver so little.

England look good for the title this year.

Any reason why this trophy seems to get played in England a lot? this is the 3rd time in 8 events that have been held.

[rich1uk]

Cheers. All over. SA seem to leave a lot of these competitions as hopelessly as England normally do.

SA promise so much, deliver so little.

England look good for the title this year.

Any reason why this trophy seems to get played in England a lot? this is the 3rd time in 8 events that have been held.

not sure what the allocation procress is, or whether anyone else had wanted to host it

[Arthur Crabtree]

I thought this and the WC was part of the big three stitch up.

[Dr Cricket]

2013 was originally given to england because the first test championship was to play in england AKA lords when broadcaster cancelled it then they competition was replaced by champions trophy, the test stuff was moved to 2017 and then again it was cancelled and replaced by champions trophy in england.
so that why england host 2 in a row, also during the big 3 stich up it was decided champions trophy will be a world cup warm up, so the host of the world cup, host the champions trophy before it.
IE india gets 2021 and 2023.

saying that logistically only really england, India can host most of the icc events.
NZ/Aus windows are small, the others can't really afford to host them regularly.

[yuppie]

I thought this and the WC was part of the big three stitch up.

Make sense as the next one is in India.

[The Professor]

South Africa choke and show they don't have the stomach for big games....sounds nasty.

[Dr Cricket]

Sa cricket team and the england football team very similar really both have huge pressure to win, most often are awful in the tournament, none of the big players show up, no one could really figure out why they don't win and every time they don't win the more difficult it becomes to remove the tag.

personally don't see SA winning an icc event till they actually pick their best 11.
they really can't afford 2 average bowlers a game and having a long tail in every game, hard to see SA having a unbeaten run or beating everyone consistently to win a world cup.
ICC champions trophy was their best chance since it was only really 2 games to determine the winner and they couldn't even qualify for the semis.
over 2 games someone like AB/Rabada etc can win it but over a long tournament like the world cup they would need better quality throughout the team to actually win it, since they would need to qualify for the semis first.

SA really got knocked out on the 4/5th bowlers and that duminy and morris is no 6 or 7 in odi.
I personally wouldn't even call this a choke either, considering SA just are not good enough to beat india especially if the big players fail.

[dan08]

personally don't see SA winning an icc event till they actually pick their best 11.
they really can't afford 2 average bowlers a game and having a long tail in every game, hard to see SA having a unbeaten run or beating everyone consistently to win a world cup.
ICC champions trophy was their best chance since it was only really 2 games to determine the winner and they couldn't even qualify for the semis.
over 2 games someone like AB/Rabada etc can win it but over a long tournament like the world cup they would need better quality throughout the team to actually win it, since they would need to qualify for the semis first.

It was SA's batting that cost them in this tournament though. De Kock was off form and AB just never shows up in any pressure game.

[Dr Cricket]

Yep Dan, AB definitely choked.
if he was calm and acted like it was ok that he was run out or when Miller was gone, SA still could have gotten 260+ or even 300.
but he was all over the place in the dressing rooms and he was batting like it was a 5 over game.

Wonder how much Amla, De kock, AB felt the pressure because behind them they didn't really have much batting.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Pakistan will chase.

Faheem Ashraf? A pace bowling all rounder apparently.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Forecast looks ok in Cardiff. I reckon SL are unchanged. No, Dhananyaya in for Kusal P.

[mikesiva]

Pakistan will chase.

Faheem Ashraf? A pace bowling all rounder apparently.

Sri Lanka Team
N Dickwella†, MD Gunathilaka, BKG Mendis, AD Mathews*, LD Chandimal, DAS Gunaratne, DM de Silva, NLTC Perera, RAS Lakmal, SL Malinga, N Pradeep
Pakistan Team
Azhar Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Sarfraz Ahmed*†, Imad Wasim, Fahim Ashraf, Mohammad Amir, Hasan Ali, Junaid Khan

[mikesiva]

Yep Dan, AB definitely choked.
if he was calm and acted like it was ok that he was run out or when Miller was gone, SA still could have gotten 260+ or even 300.
but he was all over the place in the dressing rooms and he was batting like it was a 5 over game.

Wonder how much Amla, De kock, AB felt the pressure because behind them they didn't really have much batting.

My wife's very good friend is a white Englishwoman who has in-laws in South Africa, and she goes down there every year for a couple of months...the joys of being retired. In her in-laws gated community, they've dined out at functions attended by the Saffer cricket team, and she liked everyone she met...except Graeme Smith and AB deVilliers. It's obvious why she doesn't like Smith...most folks don't! But I was surprised at her reaction to AB, who gets such good press. She said that he came across as a massive egotist, and his face was on all the advertising. When she went down this year though, she said she was pleased to see that his face was no longer on the crisps packets.

Maybe South Africa is falling out of love with AB, after his decision to opt out of the Test team....

When you look at these averages, Duminy, Amla, Miller and du Plessis did okay, while de Kock was there or thereabouts:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/icc-champ ... tournament

The real failure with the bat was AB...he was South Africa's Jason Roy. Unfortunately, he was South Africa's captain, and he didn't lead from the front.