A Tale of Two Pictures

Pic 1 – Captains lounging around

When the teacher is not around, the boys lounge around, one of them even has the audacity to sit with feet on the sofa. The picture of the cool relaxed T20 atmosphere.

Pic 2 – All in formals, meeting the Queen. The new Queensguard!

Looks like a formal class photo with everyone looking prim and proper. The very picture of the Gentleman’s Game i.e. Test cricket, embodying the “game’s spirit” as well.

Andrew Flintoff predicts the fate of all 10 teams in the World Cup

Here’s the video of Flintoff’s bold predictions:

Cricket World Cup

✔@cricketworldcup

Who's going to be 'on top of the world' at #CWC19?

We got @flintoff11's quick-fire predictions! pic.twitter.com/vAtsyexb7E

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The Indian World Cup Moments

The biggest cricketing show on the planet is about to start. The players and viewers have warmed up with two games each amongst them, sorting out their lineups, giving finishing touches to their strategies, using DRS, even getting a taste of the fickle English weather with games getting washed off. Only M/s Duckworth-Lewis didn't make an appearance.

While we wait for the actual tournament to start, its time for a nostalgia trip. So here we go presenting Slipstream Cricket’s favourite memories of the Indian World Cup campaigns starting from 1992 onwards (I have barely any recollection of 1983 & 1987 editions and wasn’t around for the first two). Instead of whole games, I have selected passages of play. So here we go Slipstream Cricket’s favourite Indian World Cup Moments (in no particular order).

1. The Toss (2011) – Kumara Sangakkara forgetting (or pretending to) what he called in the Toss in the 2011 Final!. Referee didn’t/couldn’t hear the call over the crowds and they had to do the toss again leaving a bemused Dhoni! (Somehow, seems very fishy in hindsight).

2. The Winning Moment (2011) – Dhoni smashing Kulasekara for 6 as India lifted the World Cup for a second time ending a 28-year wait. Will we see an encore? Hope so. 

3. The Response (1996) – Venkatesh Prasad to Aamer Sohail. Hit for a boundary, sledged by the batsman and then sends his stumps cart-wheeling the very next ball. The perfect response.

4. The Opening Salvo (2003) – Tendulkar upper-cutting Akhtar for 6 as India set to chase down Pakistan’s 274 run target.

World Beyond the Cup - Tete-a-Tete with Brian Mantle, CEO, Cricket Germany

This interview is our second one with Brian. The first one https://www.diehardcricketfans.in/2013/06/in-conversation-with-brian-mantle.html was 6 years back.
We wanted to do a follow up interview go gauge the progress made by German Cricket in these years.

DHCF : What is the difference you see in German Cricket since the time of our last conversation back in 2013? How much has changed in terms of both numbers and structure?

BM: German cricket is completely different to 2013. The numbers have gone through the roof and we now have about 6000 people playing competitive hard ball cricket in Germany. We have an established women's structure with more and more teams and the amount of refugees from cricket playing countries, particularly Afghanistan, has seem men's cricket teams sprouting up all over the country. We have established performance pathways and are currently in the middle of the fifth season of the DCB Super Series which is our performance competition. This didn't exist way back in 2013 and it has seen an improvement in high level cricket.

DHCF: It is so refreshing to see Germany playing against Belgium/Italy not in a football match but a cricket match. What do you think has been the impact of T20I status been given to Associate nations? With official international matches on the horizon, what does it translate into in terms of support and growth?

BM: It intensifies everything we do. These games being T20Is adds meaning to all the games. There is also a clear and simple structure to ICC T20 tournaments and every country now knows what they have to do in order to reach the next stage of World Cup qualification and even to get to the biggest stage of all. In T20 cricket at least the glass ceilings have been taken out.

The World of Cricket World Cups - Part 4 - 1992

The 5th edition of the World Cup was hosted by Australia and New Zealand, officially known as ‘Benson & Hedges World Cup’. It was a ‘first’ in many respects:

• Coloured clothing and day-night matches in floodlights with white balls and black sight-screens.
• The format of the tournament was ‘round-robin’, which meant that each team would play the rest 8 teams once and the top four teams would proceed to semi-final stage.
• The World Cup was being held in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time
• There was also a logo commemorating the World Cup for the first time.

The teams were the same from previous edition, with the addition of South Africa, making it 9 teams in total. South Africa was included as a full member nation for the first time, after ending their ban of 22 years due to ‘apartheid’ – a system of institutionalised racial segmentation in South Africa which oppressed the Black, coloured and Asian South Africans.

India started off poorly, losing the opening  match against England, game against Sri Lanka getting

washed out and losing to Australia (incidentally again by the margin of 1 run, as in World Cup 1987). Indian team returned to winning ways in the high voltage match against arch-rivals Pakistan. This was the first time these 2 teams were meeting at a World Cup and the match had its moments of skill and emotions on the field. The most noteworthy effort was of a young Sachin Tendulkar, scoring 54 not out and then taking the crucial wicket of Aamer Sohail, who was playing well and looking set to take Pakistan across India’s total of 216. Sachin was adjudged ‘Man of the Match’ for the 5th time in his career. Little did anyone know at the time that he would go on to win the award for a record 62 times in ODIs! The match is also remembered for the Javed Miandad - Kiran More verbal spat, which resulted in Javed hilariously jumping up and down, visibly irritated by the constant enthusiastic appealing by Kiran More. This match started India’s domination and winning streak over Pakistan in the World Cups, which continues till date. It can only be guessed how India managed to upstage Pakistan in these pressure matches in World Cups, especially during 90’s, when the Pakistan team used to dominate the Indian team comprehensively.

India continued its winning habit by defeating Zimbabwe in next game but crashed out of the contention of a semi final berth by losing its remaining matches to West Indies, New Zealand and South Africa. India finally finished at 7th spot, only above Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

Pakistan, on the other hand, had exactly opposite journey. After 5 matches, they were almost out of the tournament with just one win and a match washed out against England (which they would have mostly lost being bowled out for a paltry  score of 74). West Indies had already defeated them by 10 wickets in their first match chasing 221. Pakistan had just lost 2 wickets in 50 overs and still just scored 220 and their bowlers didn’t take a single wicket. The situation was completely hopeless. That is when Imran Khan stepped up in his role of leading from the front and motivated his team. He came out for the toss wearing a t-shirt sporting a tiger and gave his now famous ‘cornered tigers’ speech. His motivation bore fruits and Pakistan won their last three matches, including defeating the undefeated New Zealand. Pakistan were helped when Australia defeated West Indies in the last match before knock-out stages, which made Pakistan finish at number four and make a place in semi-final.

The World of Cricket World Cups - Part 3 - 1987

India’s win in 1983 created a huge market for the game in the Indian subcontinent, resulting in the showpiece event coming to India and Pakistan, sponsored by Reliance. The teams and format were same, but the number of overs were reduced to 50 per innings from 60 overs, as the daylight in Indian subcontinent doesn’t last as long as it does in England. India was drawn in Group A with Australia, New Zealand and Zimbabwe. India lost its opening match to Australia by an agonising margin of 1 run but won all the remaining 5 matches after that to top the Group. India unearthed a new hero in Navjot Singh Sidhu, who became famous as ‘sixer Sidhu’  for hitting sixes at will. Pakistan were the toppers in Group B. This resulted in the following semi-final line up- India facing England in Mumbai and Pakistan facing Australia in Lahore. The stage was set for a mouth-watering Indo-Pak clash in a World Cup final in Kolkata.