Thinking the Unthinkable

Pakistan is out of the World Cup. India has at least a 50% chance of following them.

I dont think Ireland's win over Pakistan makes my comments about minnows in the previous post wrong. Its great to see, adds to the excitement of the World Cup but it happens after too many one-sided matches. I mean, is it ok to play smaller teams if in one game out of 20 they cause an upset, while in the remaining 19 they get massacred ?

India - i cant believe they did this to themselves. I had spent the last two weeks discussing with different people about the threat Bangladesh (and i dont classify them as minnows) posed in the world cup. their results leading into the tournament have been there for everyone to see. Yet we walk in prepared for a stroll in the park....

There was only one good ball in all of the dismissals (the one that got Dravid) and one case of bad luck (Sachin - the ball bounced up off his pads). The rest were bad shots. The dot balls issue is not new. routinely in the champions trophy, we were letting between 120-180 dot balls go by which is criminal in a game lasting only 300 balls. We seem to have gone back into the mode of waiting for the bad balls (which are increasingly becoming an endangered species) / manufacturing 4's off good ones (increasing risk of getting out) etc. Sometime back Dravid used to be very good at this - he would reach 50 having hit 1-2 fours and still having a strike rate of 80+. He seems to have forgotten the art of doing this. And everyone else seems not to have bothered to learn.

The players responded the right way the last edition after their sputter against Holland and the collapse against Australia (both of which i had the misfortune to witness live). Can they do it again ? I hope so with all my heart, but the mind...thats another story !