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Sensational win for New Zealand over India

In an upset win in a rain-interrupted game, New Zealand beat favorites India in a thrilling first semi-final game in the cricket World Cup. New Zealand batted first and scored a very modest 239 runs in their 50 overs. Given the powerful Indian batting line up, it seemed like India would win with ease even on a difficult pitch but their top order batting collapsed, leaving them reeling at 92 for 6 before a stout rearguard action by M.S. Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja threatened to completely turn the tables by taking them to a score of 208, leaving them with just 32 runs to make to win.

But India’s top order batters had batted extremely slowly and Dhoni and Jadeja had not been able to sufficiently make up for lost time. With only 15 deliveries left, the pressure was on India to take greater risks to score quickly and they ended up losing their last four wickets for just 13 runs, thus falling short of the New Zealand score by 19 runs. The collapse was triggered by a beautiful throw by Martin Guptil from an angle where he could aim at only one stump and he hit it to run out Dhoni.

I think it is safe to say that there is much rejoicing the world of cricket other than in India, because of not only the bullying tactics of the Indian cricket body that demands that the international cricket body acceded to their wishes, but also because of the arrogance of their team and fans. Meanwhile, New Zealand is very well liked.

The other semi-final is tomorrow (Thursday) between Australia and England. I have a slight partiality for England not because I particularly like them but because I dislike Australia more, because of the relentless gamesmanship that they always display. Since both England and Australia beat New Zealand decisively in the first round of games, either would have to be favored over NZ in the final.

But whichever team wins that semi-final, I suspect that most of the cricket world is solidly in New Zealand’s camp for the final on Sunday the 14th.

Stay classy, Donald! » « Another fun pun

Comments

  1. mastmaker says

    I think it should be explicitly mentioned that, while India is the most arrogant and bullying cricket BODY -- by far -- in the world, the same cannot be said of the Indian TEAM. There’s not much to find fault with the behavior of the team itself. The most arrogant team -- by far- was Australia before the ball tampering scandal. Australia still is so, only to a slightly lesser extent.

  2. bargearse says

    There’s not much to find fault with the behavior of the team itself.

    I think Andrew Symonds might disagree with you there. As for the Australian team I always thought their arrogance and poor on field behaviour was a relatively new thing that developed from Border’s captaincy and really came to the forefront under Waugh but it turns out that’s not the case. English papers from the 1930s level similar accusations and the Ian Chappell led sides of the 1970s were especially unliked. I’m Australian but I’m not really fussed who wins the second semi, I’ll be supporting the kiwis in the final either way.

  5. Roj Blake says

    I enjoy the Australian “Take no prisoners” approach to the game. If it is there to be won, they will do what needs to be done.

    Seems more than a few Indian fans are claiming that NZ had 6 fielders outside the ring, one more than allowed at the time of the delievry that caused M S Dhoni to be run out.

    Wouldn’t be the first time the Black Craps cheated at cricket.

  6. fentex says

    bargearse #2: As for the Australian team I always thought their arrogance and poor on field behaviour was a relatively new thing that developed from Border’s captaincy

    As a middle aged New Zealander, and like any other kiwi interested in cricket, I can assert you are mistaken -- the Australian cricket team has always been complete and utter wankers.

    Does ‘underarm bowling’ ring any bells?

  7. bargearse says

    Fentex @6

    As a kid I watched that live. It was a real low point and I think most Australians were appalled.

  8. says

    @Mano:

    Thanks for the links. I think I saw the movie for the first time right around the same time you did. I wonder if we both saw it when it first became available in the States? (I did not see it in the theaters, but saw it instead a couple months after our library first got a copy. It was only the 2nd Bollywood movie I had ever seen and didn’t have a way of seeing it if I didn’t simply buy a copy, which I didn’t want to do while unfamiliar with it.)

    I read both of your articles about Lagaan and almost wanted to focus this on the daft woman problem in film… but then I hit your Post-script, something you used to use to add shorter comments on unrelated topics instead of making a separate blog post. I’ll reproduce most of it here,

    New Scientist magazine reports on the results of a new study that finds that “Overconfident people are more likely to wage war but fare worse in the ensuing battles”. It also finds that “Those who launched unprovoked attacks also exhibited more narcissism.”

    The study, done by Dominic Johnson of Princeton University involving 200 volunteers playing war games, was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

    Bertram Malle of the University of Oregon says that “the study raises worrying questions about real-world political leaders. “Perhaps most disconcerting is that today’s leaders are above-average in narcissism,” he notes, referring to an analysis of 377 leaders published in King of the Mountain: The nature of political leadership by Arnold Ludwig.”

    Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut comments that “One wishes that members of the Bush administration had known about this research before they initiated invasion of Iraq three years ago,” he adds. “I think it would be fair to say that the general opinion of political scientists is that the Bush administration was overconfident of victory, and that the Iraq war is a debacle.”

    I can’t say that I remembered that or had it in mind at any point during the Trump administration, but I was a subscriber to New Scientist back then and remembered reading that article and discussing it with friends. However, being reminded of it now it allows me to put into specific words for my general fear that Trump knows so little about what he’s doing that he seems all too likely to start horrifying wars on little to no provocation. His insistence that “trade wars”, while only metaphorically “war”, are a good thing and easy to “win” exacerbates my sense of worry. I don’t think he sees actual campaigns of bombing and invasion in terms any less simplistic or less positive.

    You might actually consider creating an updated, stand-alone post on that topic. The reminder might even be timely, if it’s not too late already.

    Again, thanks as always for your enjoyable and informative work.

  9. Mano Singham says

    Thanks, Crip Dyke!

    There are plenty of old posts that I wrote back in the day when I was posting on my university’s blog platform that current readers will not have seen unless they hit upon a link to them like you did with the daft women. I have updated that link, by the way.

    In those days, I posted just once a day, five times a week. If there was another item that I wanted to discuss, I would include it as a post script to the main post. I don’t know why I did not do a separate post for each item, even short ones, like I do now. I was just a beginner to blogging!

    I’ll think about your suggestion about updating and reposting that and other posts.

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