The Australian Phoenix

We're two test matches down in the Ashes and England has the psychological advantage going into the third test.
England have been playing really good cricket off late. They drew a series in South Africa; they did well against Pakistan at home and they even won their first international tournament in the form of the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean.

Although this may be the end of Ponting's career, Australia
will be back to the top of the summit sooner than later

Australia on the other hand have been on a downward spiral. Several of their best players retired at the same time, making their shoes hard to fill. Their captain is woefully out of form and their vice captain is batting like a cunt. Even that 80 was a piece of shit innings. He has batted better than that and he knows it. Hussey is doing a good job in the middle, but he needs to convert those 50s into larger scores.
The bowling is rubbish.
Siddle is good in bursts; Harris is good, but very unlucky; Johnson and Bollinger are inconsistent; Watson is a bits and pieces bowler and batsman, come to think of it and there is nobody in the side as a specialist spinner.
I heard someone tell me today that this is like the decline of the great West Indies.
But I disagree.
Australia may be playing like crap now, but they've always been a side to rise from the Ashes. I still maintain that they have a chance of reaching the final four of the 2011 World Cup in the subcontinent. I will not rule them out of anything.
Let's face it: I watch cricket because of this side and the way they've played the game over the years. They've played it tough. Yes, it's been dirty at times, but it's been tough cricket. They never say die and although they may lose this tournament and Ricky Ponting, in the process, they'll be back on the top of their game by 2015, if not earlier.

Clark and Watson win it for awesome England

So England are the World T20 champions.

I think they deserve it and I'm really happy that they won it.

But they owe the victory to Michael Clark for batting the way he did.

They owe Michael Clark for running out Dave Warner at the beginning of the innings. 

Clark was batting like an idiot and was woefully out of form. TestMatchSofa announced that he should have been renamed to Inzamam-Ul-Clarke. In Inzamam's defense, he can hit the ball and is an awesome batsman despite the fact that he's obese and was cult leader of Pakistan's religious sect in cricket. This sect for a time, insisted that only fanatics could play for the team.

Again it was left to a Hussey to save Australia.

This time, younger brother David took up the responsibility.

He was ably aided by Cameron White (again) and big brother Michael (Oh no! Not him again)  

I thought that the way Nannes and Tait bowled at the beginning, Australia might just win it.

Craig Keiswetter had other ideas and tried to smash everything he saw.

While he looked like a jackass in certain parts of the innings, he hit out and was effective. 

He looked like a jackass when he got out.

Pietersen continued his form.

And it was awesome that Collingwood finished it off. 

Oh yeah, along with Michael Clark, Shane Watson deserves some mention for bowling absolute shit.

But here's a question: if this is the first coalition since the World War, how long will it take England to win its next title?
And my condolences are with Uncle Jarrod. England probably read www.cricketwithballs.com before the match began.
Of course, more than the English, I see the Pakistanis, who have settled in the United Kingdom celebrating tonight's victory.
The English fans will probably be thinking of the next club game. Fucking soccer 

Previews and predictions

So it's a T20 Ashes tomorrow.
Both teams despite being juggernauts in the tournament, have had their obstacles.
In a group match, England struggled against Ireland.
And in the semis, it was only thanks to Hussey that Australia reached the finals.
England's had a dream run up to now and Australia were slightly jolted on Friday. So knowing them, they'll raise their game in this match.
It doesn't help England's cause that it's a final, but in their defense, they have been playing some fantastic cricket off late. And as Uncle JRod said, KP is donning the role of the elder statesman. For England's sake, I hope that he doesn't become the retarded batsman that he usually is.
The bowlers are bowling well and Swann is their trump card tomorrow.
For Australia, it's about Shane Watson. He's always been a big match player and I feel that tomorrow will be no different. Hussey can't repeat his heroics. That freak of nature happens once in a lifetime. It's like the Hrishikesh Kanitkar four in the Independence Cup at Dhaka in 1998, or (although I hate to mention it) Javed Miandad hitting Chetan Sharma for a last ball six at Sharjah in 1985 (Chetan should be shot for that one. Who the hell told him to bowl Miandad a full toss)
At the end of it, I want England to win this one (that in itself is a first for me), but I feel that the Aussies will take another title home.  After all, they wanted to prove to the world that they have cracked this form of the game at last
For the sake of all of us, I just hope that it isn't a one-sided final. That will be really pissing off.

Mr. Cricket is the man

Ten minutes ago, when Saeed Ajmal took Steve Smith's wicket, I thought that Australia was out of the T20 world cup.
Hell, Pakistan batted like a dream, took out both Australian openers early, had a small fright from Cameron White, but didn't look like they would lose this match.
Michael Hussey had different ideas.
He was batting at a steady pace and before the last over had scored 38 in 20 balls when the 20th over was about to be bowled.
In T20, 38 in 20 is good. Not great, but good.
What the world didn't know was that he would score 22 runs in the next four balls he faced, and won the match for Australia in the process.
When you see a guy bat like that, you just wonder what on earth the Australian selectors were doing by picking him so late in his career.
In my praise for Hussey, I do feel for Pakistan and Ajmal in particular. They tried and almost won.
They probably would have had it not been for Mr. Cricket.
Australia didn't beat Pakistan. Micheal Hussey did

The curious case of Pakistani cricket

So, the Pakistani team fucked us over.
After playing terrible cricket in the initial stage of the tournament, they are now in the semifinals against Australia.
It was something India didn't expect at all.
Team India probably thought that Pakistan, like them, took Aman Ki Asha seriously.
But Shahid and his band of merry men aren't stupid, although they pretend to be. Hell, they won everything last year. This year, despite people writing them off, they kicked South Africa out of the tournament. Before that, they were out as well.
Suddenly, they're in the semis.
While the cricketing world is predicting an Ashes final, I wouldn't rule Pakistan out at all.
You can't rule Pakistan out; in fact, you can never rule Pakistan out. Even if the PCB handpicks 11 random guys with raw talent from the street and gives them a Pakistan cap, they can never be ruled out.
In fact, when there are 11 new random names, they would be a deadlier unit.
So, Australia, get your game in place tomorrow. Your pace attack might suddenly not look so effective and your batting might collapse thanks to some random Pakistani bowling.
You have been warned

Team India: Post match analysis

India's loss yesterday was inevitable.
You can't blame them. They won two matches in the tournament.
One was a close call against South Africa, thanks to Suresh Raina's century.
One was a team effort. Full of skill from all the players, in the game against Afghanistan.
Two wins out of five games. That is still 40 per cent victory in the T20 world cup.
If they were writing an examination, they would have still passed.
But let's do an analysis of the players.
Raina deserves praise. Barring the game against the Australians, he has carried his IPL form to the national circuit and has performed regularly.
Rohit Sharma had one magnificent innings. If he plays more like he did when he made that 79 against a good pace attack, then India have something to cheer about for its middle order in the future.
Yuvraj is a cunt. Always has been and will never change.
Dhoni just won the IPL. He needs to lose something now. This was the best thing he could lose. And yeah, he had two bowlers bowling like a pair of twats and a batsman who is a twat.
But these are all excuses.
A more astute analysis was given to me by my brother in an email he sent today: India can't play fast bowling. it apparently can't play any bowling or even bowl for that matter. Perhaps we should stick to our unofficial national sport: pocket billiards.

What a bunch of wankers.

Australia have cracked the T20 format

In the first T20 World Cup, Australia looked out of sorts.
They never adapted to the shortest form of the game, the same way India and Pakistan had.
Last year, they decided to have a couple of spinners, along with Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken and Mitchell Johnson. It was a good ploy, but unfortunately for them not good enough. They were getting the hang of the format, but not consistent enough.
This year, they have adopted a four-man pace attack and it has worked.
They probably teased everyone in the warm-up game by losing to Zimbabwe. It has always been a plot that they have followed.
In 1974, when Dennis Lillee was making his comeback in the test match that shot Jeff Thompson to superstardom, Lillee was bowling military medium pace at the practice grounds. Similar tricks have been employed by the Australians in future series. The warm-up game was just another example.
India wasn't the only one to be brutalized by the four fast men. Sri Lanka got buggered last night.
In a way it's good for India. According to one of the tweets I read, Australia had to beat Sri Lanka to let India have a chance of qualifying.
It would also do India a world of good if the BCCI payed the next team India is scheduled to play to forfeit and let India qualify.
Since it is Sri Lanka, we have to find a way of tackling Malinga. Maybe Zaheer could take Malinga out for a drink and tell his Mumbai Indians bowling partner to bowl like him for this one game.
Similarly, Yuvraj can finally put himself to use and take Mahela and Sanga for an all-night party before the game. Yuvraj isn't going to make runs anyway, but this way, neither will Mahi and Sanga.
Hopefully, however, Australia's pace attack destroys everyone else to prove that India is not the only side in the world that is genuinely fucked up against fast bowling.

Is the IPL to blame?

India lost because they were crap.
In the first year of the T20 cup, India and Pakistan were unstoppable because they were the only two teams that understood the T20 format.
Yuvraj smashed Broad for 36 in an over; Sreesanth was actually bowling maiden overs and RP was the next big thing.
Similarly for Pakistan, Umar Gul was their bowling sensation and carried forward that form to the following World Cup, which Pakistan won. Also, Misbah-Ul-Haq invented the scoop shot that gave him a lot of runs and India the first World Cup.
Then came the IPL. In IPL I and II, since Pakistani players were selected, they got better international exposure and capitalized on it to take the next World Cup.
Meanwhile, England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and the West Indies were slowly getting the hang of playing the shortest form of the game.
Australia, however, were getting raped, which is why they have come back with a vengeance this year.
This year, IPL 3 saw no Pakistani players. There were more Caucasians than there were in the previous two tournaments. Hell, even Jacques Kallis was selected to represent South Africa for the T20 this year because of his IPL form.
India had just finished off two seasons - one with South Africa and earlier to Bangladesh - before IPL began.
The players felt that money was more important that resting their bodies.
The effect was disaster.
On the other hand, Pakistan hasn't played too much cricket are probably taking the same plane as India is.
So, is the IPL to blame totally? I'd ask Lalit, but he's got his own issues to deal with at the moment

Aman Ki Asha takes a whole new level

So India played shittier cricket that the West Indies today.
Gayle finally stuck form and raped the bowling, barring Harbhajan. The others bowled like a bunch of garbage.
As I predicted, they had Roach in the side and I forgot that Taylor bowled fast.
Roach took another two wicket haul in his 4 overs, something he has done only twice before.
We could have won because of the number of wides that were bowled by their side. So if we are to reconcile anything from the match, it was that they bowled shit. But then again, we batted shittier, while Gayle singlehandedly won the match for them.
Now, India and Pakistan can go home together in the same plane and Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza can pole dance for them as part of the Aman Ki Asha Peace process

India vs West Indies: A preview

So India play the West Indies tonight.
Personally, I hate watching matches in the Caribbean because I have to stay awake all night.
I've watched the all-nighters, when India or Australia have toured. When other teams tour, I usually watch until I can't keep my eyes open.
But yeah, back to the topic: it is a do-or-die situation for both teams.
West Indies will rely on an all-pace attack, after watching what Australia did to India the other night.
They'll probably take Kemar Roach, although his record in T20 is shit. The West Indies as a unit, personally is shit today. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth. Yet, despite being shit, they show signs of brilliance like the did when they beat England the other day (with a bit of help from Duckworth and Lewis). But yeah, their brilliance is inconsistent and hopefully tonight, for the sake of the Indian fan and the BCCI, whose IPL franchise paid some of their players millions of dollars to play for the IPL teams, they will play like crap.
India have some problems. Barring the brilliance of Rohit Sharma, who batted like he was on LSD the other night, the others are struggling. Yuvraj Singh shouldn't be in the side; the bowlers, except for Harbhajan are out of sorts and the fielding is as good as a child representing his apartment for a cricket match.
So tonight's contest winner will technically be the one who plays less shit. There won't be any brilliance; there won't be any one-man army (unless of course Pollard decides to sodomize us with his cricket bat); there will just be two teams making fools of themselves on the field.