New Zealand and Ireland lost their matches

New Zealand lost to Australia and Ireland lost to Bangladesh. the only difference is that Ireland being an underdog in the tournament played very well and were on the verge of winning the match before poor batting and problems playing spin took match away from them. New Zealand on the other hand never looked like a test playing nation and now people can belive that this is the team that lost to Bangladesh and India without winning nay match before the world cup. I doubt when will ICC take some action and take away test playing nation cap frm both Bangladesh and New Zealand. Both the teams are not playign to the potential of a team that have won the right to play test matches for ICC.

Another thing common in both the matches played was both were low scoring matches only 200+ runs was the target. Let see what will happen in an exciting match tomorrow between Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Another century at worlc cup - AB de Villiers Century Maker

Every day there is a century scored in this world cup so I can say this is going to be a world cup of centuries. Majority of the matches have been high scoring excluding few like one between Kenya and New Zelaand alongwith tooday's match between South Africa and West Indies.

Snce I am supporting West Indies as winners of this world cup, I will take some positve from this match as they were in command in patches for this match. Lets hope they will improvise in the matches to come and move on to the querter finals easily.

One of the surprise element of this match was a spinner openign the bowling for West Indies, remember this was the team who once have 5 fast bowlers feared by batsmen all over the world.

For tomorrow there are 2 matches one is between minnows and second between title contenders. So tomorrow catch the live soce of matches below at ICC Cricket blog:

1. Australia v N Zealand



2. Bangladesh v Ireland

Australia and New Zealand are arch rivals and it will be interesting how New Zealand will fight against Aussies. regarding the seond match it will be interesting to see how Ireland team will play and what level of cricket do they play as it is the first match of the Ireland team. Thus both matches are worth watching.

Pictures from the match:

Pakistan Steady despite early wickets

Today it was a different team in the ground. Yes I am talking about Kenya crciket team who take on Pakistan in their second match of the world cup. Pakistan won the toss today and elected to bat first. Unlike their previous match Kenyan bowlers bowled superb openign spells and Pakistan lost two early wickets in first 10 overs with score less than 40 runs.

Now the middle order batsmen Younis Khan and Kamran Akmal are batting and both are building the partnership well. They have managed to stablize the Pakistan innigns now. Scoreboard now reads Pakistan 65 for the loss of 2 wickets in 16 overs.

Now it'd be interesting to see how game proceed from here. In case Pakistan manage to build some partnerships game will turn their way and in case Kenya keep on bowling the way they are, they can create the first upset win of the worlc cup 2011.

Pic of the moment from the match:



Thomas Odoyo making an appeal in his superb opening spell

World Cup Updates - Match Reviews and Forecasts

All of us who have watched today's world cup match between Netherlands and England would definitely say that it was most interesting match of the world cup 2011 so far. Also many will not forget to praise for the the Netherlands team, who gave a tight fight to England team.

So for this was the best performance from the underdogs in the tournament. Especially brilliant performance from Ryan ten Doeschate from Netherland who not only scored a century but also took 2 wickets giving just 47 runs. ten Doeschate was also awarded Man of the Match, which he definitely deserved today. I am sure this Netherlands team will give tough time for other teams in the group too.

Coming on to tomorrows match between Pakistan and Kenya. Kenya who lost their first match badly to New Zealand will be looking to forget the nightmare performances that day but I don't expect much from the Kenyan team and all I want is to wish them good luck and hope that tomorrows match will not be one sided match.

Excitement begins day after tomorrow when South Africa will take on two time champions West Indies. Will write about that match later.

Below are wallpapers of Ryan ten Doeschate man of the match for today:

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.

Kenya all out for 69

In the second match opf the world cup 2011 New Zealand bowlers blowed superbly and bowled Kenya team to a mere 69 runs in 23.5 overs. While the opening match was a high scoring match this is goin to be the lowest scoring mach so far in the world cup history. Unlike Bangladesh, Kenya won the toss and elected to bat first, however this decision proved to be a night mare as none of the batsmen in the Kenya team batted well and only 4 players managed to get to the two figures mark and none of them crossed score of 20.

Now we have to see if New Zealand will win this match by 10 wickets or will they loose som wickets also. In the yesteday match India defeated Bangladesh by 87 runs. Virendar Sehwag was elected man to the match for his score on 17o runs.

Another match will be played lated in the afternoon today between Sri Lanka v Canada . Given the results of first two matches I will say the minnows will hardly make any impact and Sri Lankans will have the upper edge in the match. Catch all the live scores and updates od the match at http://icccricket.blogspot.com/.

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.