The Roach Coach is the Hottest Ticket in Town!

So today there we two games whose outcomes were exactly as predicted. But amongst all the boring there was some spectacular stuff going on. First Zimbabwe took down the Canucks. Zimbabwe batted first and put up 298, Taibu was only 2 away from a century - anyone have Taibu? Anyone heard of Taibu? I bet next time they play someone will have Taibu. Canada needed to do something in the opening inning worth mention so they conspired to get their bowler Balaji Rao and his leg-break googly bowling style to rustle up 4 wickets! Go Balaji Rao! But sadly the Canadians couldn't answer with the runs and went all out 175 runs short.

The second match had the West Indies pummeling the Netherlands. The West Indies opened and put up a respectable 330 runs. But when the Netherlands tried to answer that they went all out 215 runs short. The real excitement came from Roach in the 31st over. At that point he already had an impressive 3 wickets under his belt. Then 31.1 Seelaar out, lbw. 31.2 Loots out, lbw. 31.3 Westdijk out, bowled. That's 3 outs off three balls - also known as a hat trick. 6th hat trick in World Cup history. And for those of you who are bad with math, he had a total of 6 wickets for the match. Anyone have Roach? "I did, I did"

And now for something completely different, James is in the lead! OK, so its not different at all. I gained a bit with the Roach Coach but James is still disgustingly in the lead. Does anyone have some weed killer, my big house has a lupine infestation. Congrats to Bob and Moira who both had some big jumps up this round.

Tomorrow Sri Lanka takes on Kenya, good luck.

India and England tie!!!

After 100 overs, India and England tie with 338 runs a piece. Apparently this is only the 4th tie in World Cup history. Cric info summed it up like this:

Match tied Well well well. If it weren't for Munaf's short run from the last ball of India's innings India would have this game! Incredible match, Strauss's innings must rank as the best England ODI innings after Gooch's World Cup 115 in 1983. Fourth tied game in World Cup history. Breathless stuff, that game has twisted one way and another and again and another before ending up even. Ian Bell's Powerplay shot? India fluffing their last few overs with the bat? Misfields all round, all end up magnified.

What is left to say about it really. India were a bowler short, England a batsmen short and in the end it balanced to a perfect equilibrium.

Did you all see our worm? Thanks Michael. OOh by the way, after a few days of doing nothing with his team due to illness and work, he is back in action and has set his sites on beating Anna - watch out! (he just walked by and said, "I don't want to aim to high" - that is SO RUDE! Anna - I'd be pissed at him if I were you) Anyway, I have my sites set on James but he just seems to be getting further and further away, and where the heck did Henry come from???? I have to worry about him now?

Two games coming up next - neither of which should be as exciting as today's. Zimbabwe v. Canada and West Indies v. Netherlands

The worm is here!

Big Moves

well there have been some big moves around here.

First I didn't blog yesterday, sorry. And I didn't get our scores recorded either. So....when the worm appears (probably this weekend) we will be missing one day - ooh well, to bad. But in other news, South Africa bested the West Indies and catapulted Moira into 3rd place. Figures shed back the Protea. I'm guessing she had the two stand outs that led the team to victory, AB de Villiers (107 runs) and Tahir (4wickets) she might also have padded her team with Steyn who got 3 wickets. Whatever her strategy was it worked and the rest of us couldn't compare.

James still holds the lead in our competition and I'm wondering when he'll run out of trades so the rest of us can get in on the action?

Welcome to the new player, Cosmin. We all hope you fail. I mean, we wish you well, good luck, have fun.

OK, gotta go get my trades in before the early deadline - two games tomorrow New Zealand v. Australia. and Bangladesh v. Ireland.

England and James hang on for the win

The Netherlands batted first and ten Doeschate earned his century and a few more leaving 292 as the total for England to chase. The Cric Info summary of the opening inning was this, "Well, England have caught the Dutch disease again. Ryan ten Doeschate was magnificent, as inspirationally brilliant as England were dreadful. The fielding was shabby, the bowling all over the place but it was the pressure Netherlands put on them that backed them into that corner." I think the commentator must be English - note the pessimistic air. But as far as we are concerned Swann and Broad were good England bowler choices racking up 2 wickets a piece. Then England went up to bat and it was touch and go as ten Doeschates (the Man of the Match) racked up 2 wickets to go with his century. But in the end the Netherlands didn't have the bowling to keep England from taking home the win. So good for them.

James has increased his lead, again........I demand a drug test. I think he might be smoking that lupine to give him an edge. Anyway, there was much jostling with the rest of us. Katy S reclaimed 2nd place, I moved up into 3rd, Moira had huge gains, and Anna still languishes with 0 points. However, I had lunch with Anna today and she assures me that we should not count her out. She has a strategy, is working on the pivot, and will be making a surge soon........

Tomorrow Kenya returns to take on Pakistan. Lets see what the Haq and Afridi can come up with?

James continues to soar

Well, Lynda has cleared up one mystery for us. Apparently we DO have to worry about Suresh and Jitesh. They are co workers of Lyndas, Welcome to you both. Since I was unaware of your connection before now your worm lines will only start on day 3 as I didn't record the first two days totals. But seeing as how we have a few months left a few days shouldn't matter.

OK, so what has been happening? Well Sunday New Zealand trounced Kenya. Kenya batted first and put a meager 69 runs going all out after only 23.5 overs. So when New Zealand took the pitch they quickly chased that down not dropping any wickets!

Also on Sunday Sri Lanka took down Canada. Sri Lanka was up first and put up a healthy 332 runs. Jayawardene got a century and Sangakkara didn't do to bad with 92. Canada was only able to answer with a 122 runs.

Then today Australia beat down Zimbabwe. Watson, Australia's opener, started things off with 79 runs helping them reach a total of 262. Australia's Johnson made sure Zimbabwe couldn't recover taking a 4 wicket haul in the process.

So far it seems that the favorites are favorites for a reason and we haven't really had to many surprises yet. Will tonight be the night for upset?? England will try and redeem themselves against the Netherlands. If you'll recall the Netherlands handed England a crushing defeat on the opening night of the last twenty 20 tournament. So, Pietersen has some face to save. Can they do it? I am sure that Catherine is cautiously pessimistic. That's right, I said pessimistic - those English never seem to have faith in their team.

As for us, James is still miles above the rest of us. He actually increased his lead slightly and is now 324 points ahead of Catherine in second place. Catherine had a surge of her own knocking Katy S back a spot. And while the top few places have been jostling about, the bottom have of our order seems to be kinda stagnant. Don't get comfortable people - fight, bring out your big guns and make some moves! Anna??? Are you there Anna??? Did your pivot table stop pivoting? Or do you just have some really sneaky strategy that will blow us all away in the end? And I suspect Moiras score didn't change cause she can't stand the Australians and probably refused to have them on her team. Well, so much the better for the rest of us.

OK, enough already, I need a nap.

Imposters amongst us....

So you may have noticed two new comers to our competition. NO, they are not Micheals coworkers, we don't know who they are or how they came to join us. SO, you should feel free to ignore "x2worlddream" and "Jitesh World Cup team".

Now, onto our competition. Good for James for picking the two day one stand outs, Sehwag and Kholi. They both batted like mad men for India. Kohli put up a nice even century only to be out shined by Sehwag who had the impressive total of 175!! Added in with the rest of the team India put up 370 (only conceding 3 wickets) for Bangladesh to chase. Bangladesh tried but went all out with only 283, so India takes the opening match. Is this a glimpse of the way the rest of the tournament will go? Many think India is a favorite. I personally am hoping they go far as I've made Dohni my captain, so I'd like to see him in the finals.

So James leads our group by 230 points but don't be dismayed there are many many games left to play. A few notes about this tourney:

First you may be wondering, will there be a worm???? Of course there will be a worm. What kind of rinky dink competition do you think we run around here? But, we have decided that it will not make an appearance everyday. We will post the worm a few times a week. And since one day does not a worm make, there is no worm today.

Second, keep in mind that this tourney is being played in India and surrounding regions so the times are way off from here in the states. Most games are being played at 12:30 am, but on days where there are two games the first one starts at 8pm the night before. So........There are two games scheduled for Sunday. The first match (Kenya V. New Zealand) will begin at 8pm Saturday night. So, you need to have changes made by like 6pm Saturday for the Sunday games. Got it? I don't want to hear any whining about "I tried to make changes to my team the night before and they wouldn't let me....I picked Sehwag as my captain, really I did" Too bad, so sad, keep the time changes straight.

Third, Paul has decided that he is to busy to grace us with a team. If you chat with him feel free to bust his chops!

Ok, so thats that. The fun has begun and we will have a nice long ride until April 2nd.

Here we go again.....

OK, so here we go again. I have updated all the links on the right so don't hesitate to use them often. And don't hesitate to post comments - that's half the fun ya know?

To get us going I will put some questions out there for you to ponder and reply to:
1. What will your team name be? Does it have any special meanings?
2. What is your strategy for this tournament?
3. Other than yourself, who would you most like to see win our competition? Who would you like to see fail? (I know that's not nice but come on, there is someone you secretly want to be on the bottom) Who do you really want to make sure you are ahead of?


Discuss........