Hello Friends,
Sporting world has all the buzz this month surrounding the ODI cricket world cup happening in India. The tournament has really started on a fascinating note as anticipated and expected to offer some more scintillating action in coming days. So what have been the major talking points of the world cup so far? Home team dominating the proceedings so far definitely caught the most of the attention. Apart from that South Africa calling the shots with their aggressive brand of cricket, Australia bouncing back strongly after initial hiccups, not so fancied teams like Afghanistan & Netherlands giving tough competition to the heavy weights have been some of the headlines in the league phase so far. But major shock of the tournament so far has been the dismal performance of the defending champions England who are almost certain to get eliminated at the league phase. This would be really disappointing for a team who changed the dynamics of playing white ball cricket for a while now. In another world South Africa celebrating their fourth men's rugby world cup title. Let's have a quick look at the top features of the month.
Captain On A Mission
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| Image Credit: Dee03 |
Considering last three ODI world cups have been won by the home team might have put a bit more pressure on Indian captain Rohit Sharma before the commencement of the tournament. But once the men in blue entered the ground for their first match against the mighty Aussies, the Mumbaikar was in complete charge with his shrewd decision making. Since then he has been outstanding with his captaincy as well as batting so far. Leading the charge while opening the batting he is giving India the ideal start to set a platform for the batters to follow. Tactically as a leader he has always been exceptional. Five IPL titles is a testament to his able leadership. Handling the pressure of expectation from a billion people is never easy and that also in home world cup. But So far Rohit has done that with perfection. He is looking focused and determined to break the drought of ICC trophies for his country this time around. His leadership will face more stern tests as the tournament progressing towards its business end. It will be interesting to see how he tackles those challenges. Also with all probability this should be his last ODI world cup. That probably gives the additional motivation to give it all to lift that elusive trophy. Time will only tell whether he will lift that trophy on the finale night or not but it is fair to say that team India looks promising to go all the way this time under the able leadership of hitman.
Curious Case Of English Collapse
World cups always offer some sort of surprising elements especially in terms of individual or team performances. Whereas it becomes a treat to watch when those performances exceed all the expectations, at the same time sequence of overwhelming performances by individuals or teams make it hard to believe for the supporters. Defending champions England are facing that embarrassment right now as they are on the verge of elimination after loosing five matches out of six so far. This has been a shocking performance by one of the pre tournament favorites. Most importantly they themselves know that they have been way below their standards so far. It was a real shock to watch the guys who have been dominating the white ball cricket for a while now struggling big time to make an impact.
Probably too early for the postmortem, but still if factors to be considered for this kind of performance there are quite a few. Considering T20 cricket taking the centre stage number of ODIs played by teams are reducing. Stats showing number of games played by England since their triumph in the last world cup has been reduced drastically. Even though they tried to keep more or less the same core team that emerged victorious four years back, form and adaptability of those players in Indian conditions remains a question mark. Most of these players participate in IPL on a regular basis. Still this kind of performance is a serious concern. Also it is to be noticed that most of the times their leadership group speaks about the brand of cricket they want to play. Trying to play a certain brand of cricket irrespective of the conditions might have got the better of the performances or results. Workload management is a trending topic these days in cricketing world. Amount of cricket being played by most of the teams is enormous and that definitely is going to take a toll on players in a big tournament like this. But that can't be an excuse for the Englishmen as most of the sides are facing the same issue.
More importantly leadership aspect also needs to be considered. Despite winning a T20 world cup last year as captain Buttler didn't have much of an exposure to ODI cricket as a leader prior to this tournament. Hopefully he can work out a way forward sooner than later. Kind of domestic structure and administration English cricket has, it shouldn't take them long to stage a turnaround specially when they have to defend their world T20 title mid next year.
Stay tuned here for more sporting actions.
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