The Helicopter Shot

Did you see it? The helicopter shot was all the rage on the commentary in the India Afghanistan game. Personally I fell asleep without seeing much. This was not due to the cricket but rather two small helicopters that live in my house. Anyway, India did indeed beat Afghanistan but not by much. It was actually a semi close game and Afghanistan definately held their own there. As for Australia and Ireland. Australia pretty easily shut Ireland down. Apparently in a not so sportsman like fashion as the umpires had to squash the taunting more than once. But that's OK, we all know the Aussies are low class - just ask Moira.

As for our verbal lashings? Here goes: Sorry Moira but I love me the Aussies and they hit plenty of balls to the walls for me. Unfortunately some of my Indians fell short and lost a few points. Leaving me in much the same place as before. James seems to have HoGged all the points for the day while The Superheroes stopped the Balehouse Busters from doing any damage. Michael's Boomstick sounds more like a dink and the Thought Pads must still be thinking cause they didn't do much. All in all, except for James the rest of us are pretty much in the same place as yesterday. Sorry, Missy you are right, The Winners did win a few. But its early folks, really early. So, as the tourney goes on it will be critical to manage your trades. Don't spend them all to soon.

Tomorrow its just South Africa against Zimbabwe. I have high hopes for Zimbabwe, so I stacked my team with South Africans. good night.

No Mendis?

don't worry, most of us didn't pick him. But well done to Henry and Anna for doing so. I suspect Abdullah picked Mendis as well but we don't know that guy. He's an interloper who snuck in before I made our competition private. So, we can all use him as a gauge of how we are doing, the other end of the gauge will be Sean. Yes Sean has created a team. His team was named by him - any guesses what he's going to be for Halloween? And he also choose all the players himself. I did not coach him in anyway. The only thing I did was to offer him only the players who were from squads playing in matches tomorrow. I had highlighted the batsmen in yellow and the bowlers in pink. He had to choose 6 yellows and 4 pinks. It might be helpful when using Sean as a gauge to know that he choose Harbhajan Singh as his captain because I had accidentally highlighted him yellow and then went back over his name in pink - creating an orange color. Any guesses what Sean's favorite color is? So there you go.

Anyway, Sri Lanka pretty easily beat Zimbabwe by 82 runs today and obviously Mendis was the man of the match. He had like 6 wickets, 43 runs, and was not out. so there you go. Tomorrow we see two matches. Australia v. Ireland and Afghanistan v. India. Australia and India should both win comfortably but you never know when there might be an upset. Should be fun to watch no matter what. Enjoy!

Ooh by the way, Michael will be bringing out the worm just as soon as we have a few data points to make it with so don't worry. I am diligently recording our scores in an excel spreadsheet for his use later on.

The Games have begun

please return your seatbacks to the upright position and stow your trays, we are taxing down the runway and about to take off. Zimbabwe is out on the field bowling to the host nation Sri Lanka. Dilshan and Munaweera, the starters, are currently not out and doing well. I now have to decide, do I try and keep up via cricinfo or wait until I have an opportunity to catch some of the actual game? Seems it will be broadcast via ESPN 3 which we get on the xbox! And since its on the xbox you can watch live or tape delayed. Oh, how to convince Sean and Imogen that this is what they want to watch??? Anybody in the area who wants to catch a game - come on over. And definately plan on a little cricket watching party for the finals. I'm thinking bloody marys and coffee cake............

World Twenty20 2012 Begins

I just cut and pasted the first post from our last tournament. Seemed like a good place to start:


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........


Also, keep in mind that this is a Twenty20 tournament. So they play shorter games (20 overs) as opposed to the 50 overs of a 1 day international game like they did in the World Cup. So expect batters to be going balls to the walls (hey, that would be a good team name - I may have to change) and not holding back - this could lead to high scores or a duck.

final note: matches get underway on Tuesday the 18th with the host nation Sri Lanka taking on Zimbabwe. Don't discount Zimbabwe, I think this might be their year.

The bitter end

I hope you all have been carefully contemplating your final set of trades. This is it, one last chance to make whatever move you can. Can Anna hang onto 2nd? Bob, Me, Suresh, Catherine? Who will get the highly coveted 6th place spot? Can Michael finish in the top 10? Can Lynda fall far enough down to get the Sweaty Teddy award? One more game, one more day of excitement.

Missy came over the other day to watch the India / Pakistan semi. Kinda a boring game. India batted first and played pretty pedestrian cricket, we all thought that Pakistan would have no trouble beating them. But then Pakistan batted and looked like crap, so India it is in the finals facing off against Sri Lanka. India will have to do better if they are to take home the title. We're all set around here for our finals party. Its to bad that we are spread all over the world because it would really be fun to have ALL of us together for the excitement. Lets hope its a real nail biter.

If memory serves me, Paul won the last World Cup and earned his name on the cricket bat trophy. Now it looks like we'll need to get the trophy to James (I'm not spoiling anything by naming James winner am I?) Catherine - could you bring it with you when you come? If not this trip then maybe in August. We'll engrave James on there and he can hold it for the next four years until I claim it in 2015! Thanks all for the fun and competition.

Get the Party Started

OK folks, the party starts Saturday at 10:30. We'll be watching the game taped delayed so try and hold off on your morning ritual of coffee and cric info. Since the game will be so damn long I am thinking we will want lots of snacky foods to munch on throughout rather than one big meal. I'm gonna make some sandwhiches, actually some wraps - a thai chicken wrap, a scampi wrap, and a hummus/veggie wrap. You guys bring anything that you think would be good to stuff our faces with. Who's in?

In Cricket news: Sri Lanka beat New Zealand today which surprised no one but New Zealand did put up a pretty good fight and can leave the tournament with the heads held high. Tomorrows game is India v. Pakistan. Should be a really good game. I'm cheering for India, well, Dhoni specifically. And Yuvraj, and Afridi, and the Haq, and ...........

It only takes two

Well, South Africa gave a huge gift to England when they beat Bangladesh and then choked while playing New Zealand. I guess it didn't pay to be so nice. Then England took that gift and promptly flushed in Aunt Katy's Outhouse this morning when they were trounced by Sri Lanka. This must be Odins way of righting the universe. So moving onto the Semis we have Sri Lanka who will face New Zealand on Tuesday and on Wednesday India will take on Pakistan.

We finally purchased the video feed of the cricket so Michael caught the end of this mornings game. He watched on with glee at seeing cricket on our new big TV. Giggling with joy as Dilshan apologized to Tharanga for hitting a 4 and then just stood there for the rest of the over. This allowed Tharanga to score not only the winning run but also earn his century. I'm not sure if Michael's glee was due to Dilshan's cheekiness or just being able to see cricket in general but he was dancing around like a ten year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. So, if you are in the area on April 2nd come on over to watch the finals. We'll watch it delayed so don't go checking cricinfo that morning or you'll spoil the results. I'll get you more specifics soon about exact times and what you can bring.

Our competition is heating up. If you ignore James, and I try to, then there is some fierce competition in the upper ranks. Bob was in 2nd, then Katy S, then Suresh, and now Anna has jumped into that coveted position. There is lots of jockeying around. I was ahead of Bob - much to my glee, now he's ahead of me - much to my chagrin. Missy was down, now she's up. Cosmin has rocketed into the mix. It seems that anyone can shoot themselves into the top 5. Michael moved out of 11th only to get stuck in 10th, can he overcome and conquer 9th? Can Lynda and Moira at least break into the 8 thousands before all is said and done? Ok, James, we won't ignore you any longer, what is your world ranking these days? Ooh I just looked. You're sitting at 100 exactly - hang in there James! As much as I don't want to type this out loud It would be fun if you finished on the leader board.

OK, bit of break for the next few days. Next set of trades needs to be done by Monday night. Oh, a question: I have been thinking about strategy. do you think it best to split your squad in two and have half from each team playing, or to pick a side and load up on them? My strategy has been to split my team, I am thinking that may not be the best option. James, Anna, what does the almighty pivot say? Dad, does Odin have an opinion?