Pollard Help West Indies post a competitive total

West Indies team rely heavily on the power hitting of Keron Pollard and today he saved the West Indies team against the Ireland. Time he arrives West Indies team was struggling with less than 200 runs scred at the avers of around 4 runs per over. However after spendin few voers in the crease Pollard opted for the power play and truned the game to the favor of his team.

West Indes has set a target of 276 runs for the Ireland team and this target seems a tough task but as they have chased 300+ runs against England the Irish team may go for the kill here.

Batting for the Ireland team will begin in 15 minuted from now and if they manage to post a 80 to 100 runs opening partnership we will have a chance to see a close match in the world cup.

Keep a view at the scoreboard.

Cricket wallpapers of the moment:

Bangladesh & Zimbawe lost in short one sided games

Both the mnatches played today were one sided matches and also very short durartion matches. Both Zimbawe and Bangladesh team bated badly and the score was chased easily by the opposition teams.

Match one - Zimbawe Vs New Zealand: Its has been noticed that New Zealand team win matches against ICC associate teams by large margin and at the same time they get defeated by world cup hot favorites by same margin. Today New Zealand beat Zimbawe by 10 wickets, they score of 166 was chased easily without loosin a single wicket in 33.3 overs. This win definitely give some boost to New Zealand team and they can now think of moving to the next round of the world cup.

Match two - West Indies Vs Bangladesh: A horrible performance from Bangladesh and this performance one again raises the question if Bangladesh Test status be canceled or not. Bangladesh team managed to score only 58 runs whic West Indies chased easily by loosign just one wicket in less than 15 overs. With this victory West Indies team too looks to be in the next round of the world cup easily.

Some wallpapers from the cricket matches today:

Fastest World Cup Centry by Obrien

Fastest World Cup Centry by Kevin Obrien helped Ireland win the match against England. This match Ireland team break lots of records including mentioend below:

1. Fastest century in worl cup history
2. Highest 5th wicket partnership
3. Highest socre chased in world cup

I must also admit here that this was the most interesting match in the 2011 world cup so far, next best can be rated as the one between India and England played at the same venue last Sunday. England team is having trouble with macthes against under dogs as they had problem with match against Netherlands as well but they somehow managed to escape the Ryan ten Doeschate's onslaughter.

I can now defintely agree with the post match statement od Ireland captain who said the team still can qualify for the nest round of the tournament. They do have thre chances at the same time India and England will definitely have to work harder in comming matches so as they can qualify easily to the next round. India will play Ireland this sunday and this game wll be interesting one to watch now.

World cup match today: Today in world cup Netherlands is playing against the strong South African team who already have scored 284/4 in 46 overs. Now we will have to see if Netherlands can do the same thing as the Irish team did yesterday.

Good luck to the Netherlands team.

Player of the day : Kevin O'Brien

In the mean time South Africa have scored 351/5 in 50 overs and thus set a target hard for Netherlands to achieve.

Boring Week day Matches Vs Interesting Weekend Matches at world Cup

Boring Week day Matches Vs Interesting Weekend Matches at world Cup, perhaps this statement is going to be true till the world cup matches proceed to the knock out stage (Quarter finals). For instance you can see this weekend there were two interestign matches first one Pakistan vs Sri Lanka and Second one India Vs England on Sunday. Both the matches were interesting but as the week started today there were two boring matches played whose summary is as below:

Zimbawe Vs Canada - Another boring match which again raises the quesdtion of associate nations of ICC participating in the tournaments like world cup. Canada was all out at 123 while chasing 299 to win. Interesting Netherlands also made 115 runs.

West Indies Vs Netherlands: I doubt if this was the same team that fought so well against England the other day. Perhaps the team had a bad day today I wish the Netherlands team good luck for next match. I want this team to win atleast one match beffore leaving home from the world cup.

Some boring matches you can catch this weekdays:
Sri Lanka v Kenya : Tomorrow day nigh cricket match. Kenya team once have gain some respect among the opponents but this Kenyan team looks much like other associates. Sri Lanka wont have any problems in this one sided match. Lets see how many records will be broken or created tomorrow.

England v Ireland - 2-March: Another one sided match, Ireland team has a long distance to travel before they canhope of competiting and winning matches against these test playing nations.

March 3 : two matches will be played amongh; Netherlands v Sth Africa & Canada v Pakistan. Once again pretty one sided games.

March 4: N Zealand v Zimbabwe and Bangladesh v West Indies . These two games can be worl cup turning matches in case Zimbawe or Bangladesh win the matches.

some good matches will be on 5 and 6 march I will post about those later.

New Zealand won by 10 wickets

This is what you call a completely one sided match. Right from the first ball of the tha match till the last, Kenya never looked really in the match and New Zealand won the match with 10 wickets and more than 40 overs yet to be bowled. Remember this is the Zew Zealand team that completeley lost their recently one day series to India and Balgaldesh. At that time there were doubts of if New Zealand team will qualify for the next round of the tournament. Perhaps this vistory will boost the teams confidence and make there way for the world cup success they have yet to achieve.

Below are the statements of both the captain in the post match presentations:

Vettori: "Wicket had a bit of variable bounce, which our seamers exploited. some big games coming up, good to start like this. With Mills coming back, there might be some changes for the next game. Nathan has done brilliantly as well for us."

Kamande: "Don;t think it was the wicket. It was the areas NZ bowled. We got to be more positive in whatever we do. NZ came very hard at us. We have to learn from this performance today. There are some more games coming up for us."

In just two hours from now the thirs match of the world cup will begin between Sri Lanka and Canada once again between one world cup favorites and a minnow team.

Oneintersting fact here is that the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium hasn't hosted any international match yet so the pitch condition are complete unknow to both the host and the Canadian team. Though it wil be a hard task for the Canadian team to beat Sri Lanka yet we need not to forget that the Canadian team consists of immigrants from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistasn and Banlgladesh thus this team can be considered to give some tough moments to Sri Lanka in the match.

India out to a flying start loosing 2 wickets

Well India got to to flying start scoring 60+ runs in first 10 overs but they way Sachin Tendulkar got run out, you will definitely doubt if this is a team prepared for the world cup. As far Balngladesh bowling is concerned they are hardly causing any problems for batsmen as Indian batsmen are freely scoring runs.

Currently with scoreboard reading India 186/2 in 29 overs. Sehwag is one the verge of scoring first century of the world cup 2011 he is playing on 2011. The way he is playing he is gonna achieve this.

Perhaps India will achieve a score somewhere around 340.

Live Score World Cup Match 7 South Africa v West Indies

Welcome for the post on live score for the seventh match of the world cup 2011. Match will be played between South Africa and West Indies. You can catch the live scoring action of the match at ICC Cricket Blog. Below are few highlights of both the teams.

South Africa may have been number 2 or number 3 ranked team in ICC Cricket Rankings for both one day and test cricket for many years, but this team has always hard luck when it comes to major ICC tournaments like ICC World Cup, Champions Trophy etc. West Indies on the other hand was the champion in the initial years when cricket was growing as a sport. AFter winning the first two world cup tournaments West Indies team is on a decline and never looked so threatning it was once with 5 fast bowlers in the bowling and some really tough hitting batsmen.

I personally want West Indies win this world cup reasons are it will become the team to win maximum number of world cups after Australia and at the same time it would get the game some life in West Indies.

Let wait and watch which team will win the worlc cup. Enjot the tournament.

Kenya v Pakistan - Match 6 World Cup 2011

This is a day night match between the two teams of group A and will be played at Mahinda Rajapaksha International Cricket Stadium, Sooriyawewa, Hambantota. Pakistan being the team in the sub-continent will have a strong advantage of home like conditions but at the same time Pakistan team may not be the strongest one. Team like Kenya and Bangladesh has the histroy of disappointing big teams like India, Pakistan and West Indies in the world cup matches. The only point where Kenya team looks down is inexperience the team hasn't plated much cricket in the past. Thus we can say chances are there that Pakistan can win the match easily.

Till noe both Pakistan and Kenya have not decalred the teams for the world cup so I am unable to predict much about the future of both the teams in world cup. Will let you know about the team as declaration in dont my the team selectors.

Match 5 England v Netherlands - World Cup 2011

The counter for the ICC Cricket World Cup says 30 more days to go. The fifth match of the tournament will bre played against England and Netherlands. This is a group B match and will be a day night match to be played at Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, Nagpur. Nagpur pitch is like most Indian pitches flat and the can be considered to be a high scoring game untill Netherlands who is relatively a less experienced team get bowled out to a small total batting first. I will rate this match equally as both the teams dont have any exceptional record and world cup. I wish Netherlands team good luck for the world cup a better show here in the tournament may be good fo rthe team and promotion of the game of cricket in teh nation.

England are already the T20 world champions and wil eb looking forward to win the cup they have never won earlier. England team confidence must alsol be higher after winning the Ashes but more can be predicted by the one day serices of seven matches they will play against Australia.

Will birng you more updates, keep visiting.

World Cup Squad for Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Cricket board today announced the 15 member squad for the cricket world cup 2011. The way they have announced the list of 30 probables I was expecting the senoior member like Sanath jaysurya and Chaminda Vass in the team. Particularly sanath Jaysurya he has great recode in the Indian subcontinent and was the main player behind the Sri Lankan world cup win the in woreld cup held in the sub continent years back.

Below is the Sri Lankan team for the world cup:

Kumar Sangakkara (captain), Mahela Jayawardene (vice-captain), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Silva, Chamara Kapugedera, Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera, Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis, Rangana Herath.

ICC World Cup 2011 gets insured for Rs 600 crore

Ahead of the cricket world cup this year in the Indian subcontinent, ESPN has taken insurance cover for the ICC World Cup 2011 for Rs. 600 crore.

New India Assurance will provide insurance cover against terror and adverse weather. BCCI will take additional insurance cover for all 8 Indian venues. The World Cup begins on February 19.

The 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup will be the tenth Cricket World Cup, and will be hosted by three South Asian Test cricket playing countries; India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It will take place during the months of February and March 2011, with the first match being played on 19 February 2011.

29 matches out of 49 will be played in India including one quarterfinal, semi-final and final, 12 matches in Sri Lanka including one quarterfinal and semifinal and eight matches in Bangladesh including two quarterfinals.The tournament begins in Mirpur, Dhaka, on 19 February with the much-anticipated opener between co-hosts Bangladesh and India.

News Source: http://profit.ndtv.com/news/show/icc-world-cup-2011-gets-insured-for-rs-600-crore-134155?pfrom=home-Business&cp

Netherlands Team for Cricket World Cup 2011

Hey, its just around one and a half month left for the Cricket world cup to start. Sooner I'll be posrting about team arriving in the three co-hosting countries and warm up matches played among the nations. Update for the moment is that Peter Borren will lead the Netherlands team for the world cup 2011. It will be first time he will be leadin the country in World Cup.

Netherlands is the first nations fo announcew the 15-man squad for the world cup. the deadline for announcing hte 15 membed squad is January 19 but since several of their players in Netherlands team are not full-time professional cricketers and need to balance the World Cup with their other jobs. Netherlands, who are in Group B, will play their first game against England on February 22.

Match 4 - Australia vs Zimbabwe -Ahemdabad

Fourth match of the ICC cricket world cup will be a group A match played between
Australia v Zimbabwe at Ahmedabad. Given the fact that Australia has won the world cup maximum number of times and Zimbabwe is a troubled nation team, this match is also going to be a one sided match. Now till now we have seen that all the 3 previous matches also seem to be one sided affairs. Her is the pre-match review of the first three matches of the 2011 world cup:

• ICC Cricket World Cup Opening Match - World Cup 2011
• Match 2 World Cup 2011 Kenya v New Zealand at Chennai
• Match 3 world Cup - Sri Lanka Vs Canada

Perhaps this is the trend of all worl cup tournaments be it hockey, cricket, soccer or any other game. Games get exciting as the competition goes by. My best wishes to the zimbabwe team this nation definitely needs a world cup win fo rthe game to survie and grow in the nation. I really wnat them not to exit in the first phase of the tournament.

World Cup 2011 Updates

Now its less than 2 months for ICC Cricket World Cup to start and most of the participating nations have started declaring theie list of 20 - 30 probable players to represent the respective cricket team .

Here are few updates from the teams participating in the world cup 2011:

List of probable players for Newzealand cricket team: below is the list of players, fifteen players from the list will be selected for the national cricket team:

Brent Arnel, Hamish Bennett, Doug Bracewell, Dean Brownlie, Ian Butler Grant Elliott, Daniel Flynn, Martin Guptill, Jamie How, James Franklin, Kyle Mills, Adam Milne, Brendon McCullum, Nathan McCullum, Peter McGlashan, Andy McKay, Rob Nicol, Jacob Oram, Jeetan Patel, Jesse Ryder, Tim Southee, Shanan Stewart, Scott Styris, Ross Taylor, Daryl Tuffey, Daniel Vettori, BJ Watling, Kane Williamson, Luke Woodcock, Reece Young

West Indies list of probables for the world cup: Lionel Baker, Adrian Barath, Carlton Baugh Jr, Sulieman Benn, Dave Bernard Jr, Tino Best, Devendra Bishoo, Darren Bravo, Dwayne Bravo, Jonathan Carter, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Kirk Edwards, Chris Gayle, Ryan Hinds, Jason Holder, Anthony Martin, Nikita Miller, Nelon Pascal, Kieron Pollard, Kieran Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach, Andre Russell, Darren Sammy, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shane Shillingford, Devon Smith, Gavin Tonge, Devon Thomas.


Preliminary Ireland list of world cup team: William Porterfield (capt), Andre Botha, Alex Cusack, George Dockrell, Phil Eaglestone, Allan Eastwood, James Hall, Trent Johnston, Nigel Jones, Ed Joyce, Rory McCann, John Mooney, Kevin O'Brien, Niall O'Brien, Andrew Poynter, Boyd Rankin, Paul Stirling, Albert van der Merwe, Regan West, Gary Wilson, Andrew White, Craig Young.

In the meantime Pakistan has still not declared the list of 30 probables players fo rthe world cup due to some players injvloved in sopt fixing scam.

The main surprise is from the Kenyan team that has 8 uncaped players in the list of probables. Here is the Kenya team list: Ragheb Aga, Duncan Allan, Runish Gudhka, Jimmy Kamande, Irfan Karim, Karan Kaul, Irfan Karim, Peter Kituku, Alfred Luseno, Tanmay Mishra, James Ngoche, Shem Ngoche, Alex Obanda, David Obuya, Collins Obuya, Nehemiah Odhiambo, Nelson Odhiambo, Thomas Odoyo, Lucas Oluoch, Peter Ongondo, Joseph Onyango, Lameck Onyango, Elijah Otieno, Morris Ouma, Kennedy Owino, Rakep Patel, Vinit Shikotra, Steve Tikolo, Hiren Varaiya, Seren Waters, Dominic Wesonga.

Now the biggest update will come by Jan 19 when all the team will have to give the 15 members list of the world cup. Keep visitng for the updates from world of cricket.

ICC World cup 2011 tickets sale - Buy Cricket World Cup Tickets

In the previous post I added world cup 2011 countdown widget where visitors can watch the time left for the most awaited cricket tournament. Now once again there's a good news for those who want to watch the match live and enjoy the thrilling environment of the cricket stadium.

For those who have busy schedule ICC Cricket blog is always there to watch the live cricket scoreboard. Coming back to match tickets ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 tickets are now on sale at http://www.icccwc2011.kyazoonga.com

So no waiting book your tickets now

Countdown to the ICC Cricket World cup 2011

Countdown to the ICC Cricket World cup 2011 has begun and with around 4 more months left for the tournament I today added the world cup 2011 countdown timer to my ICC Cricket blog. I am sure all the cricket overs will like this script. You need not to calculate number of days left for the world cup you can see automated and live countdown timer.

At the same time sports lover can also watch the highlights of Commonwealth games 2010 that are currently being hosted in India.

Match 2 World Cup 2011 Kenya v New Zealand at Chennai

Group A will play the second match of world cup 2011 at Chennai where Kenya will face New Zealand. Both the teams had not played much matches against each other but experts took New Zealand as the favorites for the match.

Kenya team though have good experience of playing in world cup still they don't have any real tournament apart from one where they manager to reach the super six. This team need a super coach from Australia or Pakistan and then perhaps team fortunes will change one day.

Fans of both the teams and cricket lovers can watch the match score live at http://icccricket.blogspot.com

ICC Cricket World Cup Opening Match - World Cup 2011

ICC Cricket World Cup Opening Match - World Cup 2011
Feb 19, 2011 will be the day when the opening match of the ICC cricket world cup 2011 will be played between the two co-hosts India and Bangladesh at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, Bangladesh. Sri Lanka is the third hosting country, initially the other country Pakistan was also one of the co-hosts for the world cup but later ICC ruled out any possibility of world cup matches in Pakistan due to security concern, remember Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked by terrorists in Pakistan while they were on there way to the Stadium and many players had a narrow escape.

Coming back to the first match of the cricket world cup 2011 between India and Bangladesh. Both the teams are in Group B. England, West Indies, Ireland, Netherlands and South Africa are the other teams in the Group B.

India may seem to be the favorites for the world cup opener match however If you go by stats then the only world cup match played between India and Bangladesh was won by Bangladesh, also match in being played in Bangladesh thus the Bangla team can be a surprise package in the opening of the 2011 cricket world cup.

ICC World Cup 2011 Warm up matches

India will play Australia & New Zealand in the warm up matches for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Below is the schedule for the world cup warm up matches:

February 12: New Zealand v Ireland in Nagpur, Zimbabwe v South Africa in Chennai, West Indies v Kenya in Colombo, Sri Lanka v Netherlands in Pallekele, Bangladesh v Canada in Chittagong

February 13: India v Australia in Bangalore

February 15: Australia v South Africa in Bangalore, Ireland v Zimbabwe in Nagpur, Kenya v Netherlands in Pallekele, Bangladesh v Pakistan in Dhaka

February 16: India v New Zealand in Chennai, Sri Lanka v West Indies in Colombo, England v Canada in Dhaka

February 18: England v Pakistan in Dhaka

Given the current news of betting and spot betting, I am sure the bookies will be targeting world cup lets see if Indian police or other crime investigation departments will be able to keep a check on this. If a control on betting is not there the game will soon loose its charm to other games.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 official mascot

Stumpy is the official mascot for ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Have look at the pics below for stumpy cricket worlc cup 2011 mascot.