Recap

Some brief thoughts on occurrences today:

The England men collapsed from 129-0 to 176 all out. It was pretty spectacular, even by English ODI standards, but there is little to be said about the match that has not been said on the tour already. The loss hands England a 0-5 whitewash. England can try to salvage a bit of face in a one off T20 before having two months off preceding the series against Pakistan in the UAE.

England were on the good side of a whitewash in South Africa though, as the women beat South Africa by five wickets to secure a 3-0 whitewash. A good bowling performance ensured that they only had to chase 182 to win and despite the early losses of Charlotte Edwards and Danni Wyatt they got home with a full seven overs to spare. Lydia Greenway top scored with 63, (and won Player of the Series) and Heather Knight won Player of the Match for her unbeaten 55 with the bat and 2-15 with the ball. England now have a three match T20 series to conclude the tour.

Bangladesh drew their rain ruined Test against the West Indies in Chittagong. There was never going to be a result, although the Windies were bowled out for 244 (a deficit of 106). Bangladesh were the better side and will take heart from debutant Elias Sunny who took 6-94 in the first innings. Two full days were lost to rain, although it was all overnight rain. The groundstaff could not get the outfield dry and days two and three were completely lost. It was something of a farce and should not happen on a test match ground, even in Bangladesh. The Windies have not had a great tour thus far; they won the ODI series 2-1, but were bowled out for 61 in the last match and this performance was a pretty poor one. There is one match left in the series and they will need to up their game considerably to avoid a humiliating defeat.

Zimbabwe won a historic victory against New Zealand. They chased down 329 to win by just one wicket and with one ball to spare. It was their highest ever successful run chase. Malcolm Waller won a deserving Man of the Match after scoring an unbeaten 99 off 74 deliveries and hitting the winning runs (though he was dropped twice in the last over). The Kiwis still won the series 2-1, but this does add something (I’m not sure what, exactly, probably some sort of spice) to the one off test match next week. Hopefully it will be a good match.

Not today, but on Sunday South Africa (men) levelled their series against Australia, inflicting an 80 run defeat on the tourists. Australia won the first match by 93 runs (D/L) so it’s been a pair of hammerings, but in opposite directions. The ODI series concludes on Friday and I am not even going to try to predict how that will go. A tie would probably be most fitting.

Congratulations to the All Blacks!

France 7-8 New Zealand. That’s the scoreline that ends 24 years of hurt for the All Blacks. It was hardly a pretty match, it could probably be inferred from the scoreline that it was very attritional. New Zealand never trailed, but it was a bad handling error that led to France’s try. They had a very fraught last ten minutes in which they had to work hard to stop France and not concede a penalty inside their own half. It would have been a little bit more comfortable, but the All Blacks only got three points from kicks out of eleven attempted. (It was worse for France, who only got two from eleven.) France played well, they fought harder than I or a lot of people expected. New Zealand were the better side though and just about made it count.

Blue v Black

Tomorrow morning at 03.00 CDT/09.00 BST is the fourth ODI between India and England. I’m hoping for an England fightback (and some changes to the XI) but I’m not optimistic. I’ll be missing the first part of the match because it is conveniently at the same time as the final of the Rugby World Cup. (Actually it is quite convenient because I probably wouldn’t get up just to see England play like shite again.)

New Zealand play France in a match that the All Blacks ought to win because they are the better side and ought to lose because they have a World Cup hoodoo against France. Though actually it’s probably fairer to just say that New Zealand have a World Cup hoodoo; against France they have actually won three and lost two. The problem for the All Blacks is that those two losses have both been in knockout matches, whilst of their three victories only one has been in a knockout match (the 1987 final). The other two were in the 2003 third place playoff (or Bronze Final as they’re calling it now) and in the group stage of this World Cup.

France have had their much publicised mutiny in the ranks, but are riding on a wave of confidence. They’ve pulled off two upsets in the knockout stages already and they clearly feel that they can pull off another. They will certainly have to play better than they did against Wales, however and will be unlikely to be aided by dodgy refereeing. By comparison, the All Blacks looked a bit fraught in the first half against Argentina, but quite comfortable since then. They have coped well with the loss of Dan Carter and look strong favourites. But then, when have New Zealand ever not looked strong favourites? (In rugby, I mean.) Despite being consistently the best side they have not won since the opening tournament. And, going off the media reports, the side and their fans actually seem to have less confidence than Les Bleus. Perhaps that’s a good thing for them. Their could be accused of overconfidence in their previous losses.

My prediction: France 9-22 New Zealand.

New Zealand already have one crushing victory this weekend

New Zealand played the first T20 of their tour to Zimbabwe today. Earlier this year Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh in their one off test and thee matches to two in their ODI series. Then they were hammered by Pakistan in all formats. New Zealand should, of course, be rather closer to Pakistan than Bangladesh, but one can never be sure with teams that don’t play a lot. Their performance today, however, suggests that they are very much the stronger side.

New Zealand won the toss and bowled on a pitch that looked to have something in it for the quicks. Zimbabwe never really got going, and lost wickets at regular intervals. They ended up limping to 123-8, a possibly competitive total in the FLT20, but not so much in an international. Such is the nature of T20s though, that no chase is certain – Ask England, who chased 126 with five overs and ten wickets remaining one day, only to collapse to 88 all out chasing 114 two days later. New Zealand, helped by some poor Zimbabwean fielding, emulated the former performance. Zimbabwe dropped two catches after the powerplay ended. It probably didn’t change the result, but Brendan McCullum in paricular set about making Zimbabwe pay for their sloppiness. He scored 81 not out off 54 deliveries with five fours and six sixes. New Zealand won by ten wickets with 6.3 overs to spare.

Zimbabwe have been out of the international fold for a while, but they must do better than that. Still, it was only a T20 and as we saw with England one merciless thrashing does not a series win. The second and final T20 is on Monday and Zimbabwe could certainly bounce back.

I wonder how many in NZ actually watched a match that started around 01.00 Kiwi time. The All Blacks play the Wallabies tonight (New Zealand time, tomorrow morning UK and US time) and I suspect it’s receiving slightly higher billing in the antipodes. The All Blacks need to win because a France v Australia final would be too much.