Friday, April 1, 2011

Cricket World Cup 2011 And Mediocre Cricket Experts

The cricket enthusiast these days savor many programs on cricket apart from full days of cricket. A day of cricket is often accompanied by post-match and pre-match shows wherein cricket experts throws light on various aspect of the match and the game. It was no different during cricket World Cup 2011. The official broadcasters of the Cricket World Cup organized the program with Harsha Bhogle and various cricket experts before and after the match, and between the innings. Media channels too had their expert analysis programs. These experts were often found wrong in their predictions and they often changed at various stages during a single day. Let us have a look at some of those instances.

Let us start with the most enthusiastic expert Navjot Singh Sidhu. Many times Sidhu went wrong with his prediction and pre-match analysis. Before India Vs England game, Sidhu predicted India to be winner. He said it is 80% India and 20% England. Most of the other cricket experts too predicted India to win easily. England almost chased down a mammoth target before they ended up with a draw. During innings break between India Vs Pakistan Semi-Final, Sidhu opinionated the match to be in favor of Pakistan so did Ian.

Let us now have a look what the other most opinionated cricket expert Ian Chappell has to offer. When asked about the possible topper of Group 'A,' Chappel said he would like to wait till Sri Lanka Vs Australia game to predict the possible topper for the Group 'A' implying that Sri Lanka or Australia will top the group. Instead it was Pakistan, which came on top of group and on their way defeated both Australia and Sri Lanka.

On slightly different note, let us talk about Imran Khan. There were reports that Imran Khan called Shahid Afridi and lended him with valuable expert advice. He has supposedly emphasized on the need for Yunis and Misbah to bat high in the order. Imran Khan, despite all his cricketing brilliance was wrong here. It was because of Yunis Khan and Misbah in the middle order together that Pakistan lost the match against India. Yunis Khan and Misbah are excellent batsmen, but they cannot rotate strike and score rapidly. In short format of the game, they cannot be together at the crease, especially when they are chasing big score. Misbah is an asset late in the order in short format of the game. He can play a waiting game as well as hit the ball to cleaners at will. Imran Khan did not seem to pick that simple fact. He could have instead advised Shahid Afridi to follow Yunis Khan and bat at #5 with Misbah at #7 following Umar at #6, it could have made a huge difference.

Boria Majumadar is a journalist cricket expert who seems to have his opinion. Boria counted on Indian batsmen and said that Dhoni had Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Gambhir and so on fall back upon and Pakistan has only Yunis Khan to fall back. I think he forgot or chose to forget Umar Akmal who is the most talented batsman in the World today and Misbah who played some match winning and match saving innings in the recent past. None of these Indian batsmen actually performed except Sehwag. Sachin scored as long as Pakistan allowed him to. It was India's bowling that won the match. Otherwise Sachin would have been the most embarrassed person on earth after playing that chancy innings had bowlers not won the day for India.

Sourav Ganguly is another highly-rated, mediocre cricket expert. Many times he went wrong in his predictions. On the eve of India Vs Pakistan cricket match he kept on emphasizing that Pakistan will need at least 280 runs on the board to beat India. What all India could manage is a chancy 260. In other words, India scored as much as Pakistan allowed them to. 

1 comment:

qaisarsheikh said...

Imran khan through out the WC has been saying that whenever Pakistan would be forced to chase a 250+ target, Misbah and Younis will turn out to be disastrous if they got together on crease at a time. yes he wanted top batsman up in the order but not together, he warned team numerous times on GEO SUPER to avoid such condition. You Got it Wrong.