Australia choke

It was there for them. It was so close. But, once again, Australia CHOKE and FAIL to win another Twenty20 competition. This is perhaps due to their status as biggest chokers in the game.

Although, this, of course, isn’t true. AYALC's experimenting with real reporting, by making things up, and ensuring those things are wrong.

Australia were outplayed in all three disciplines in the game, plus the crucial fourth discipline of bribing the umpires to give you wildly generous decisions.

England’s early wickets bowlers contained Australia to a reasonable low score, with more than a hint of mental disintegration during the first Power Play. Some lower order big-hitting at the end lifted the score from carpet-level to crud-that-sits-on-the-carpet-level.

The fireworks at the back-side of the innings came too late. Only the bowlers could save them the Australians.

Only they couldn’t. Because they are shit.

Happily, the inexperienced flappers failed to take crucial early wickets, allowing England’s finest passport-dodgers to take them over the line.

Does this mean that Australia choked?

I have no idea. I honestly have no clue what ‘choking’ means. My theory is that choking is losing to Australia in any important match. This especially applies to South Africa. If South Africa lose to Australia, in any manner, this automatically becomes choking.

So, as Australia lost to the better team, they failed themselves. They choked themselves.

Much like Stephen Milligan.

India wins, or so it seems

No one really cares. Not even a billion Indians. However, the match twisted and turned. Or so I read. I didn’t really watch it. In protest of losing my bet, and decrying the banality of the ultra-shortened format, I boycotted the affair.

Is acceptable to say that India were the best team in the tournament/championship/wasteoftime? After all, Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka won more matches than they.

Do we see India’s elevation into the highest of limited-over achievement a reflection of sporting justice? Well, taking my claims that twenty20 is a cricketing equivalent to “spin the bottle”, no one would have deserved any plaudits if they won.

But I’m no mean bastard. Well done India. You lucky sods.

Twenty20: The randomness reigns

In an unexpected turn-around, India beat South Africa by enough runs to knock them out of the whole bloody tournament. Despite losing their star batsman, Yuvraj Singh, who fell over his cat during a practice session, India prospered under the steely determination of one Rohit Sharma (50) who saw them to a decent total.

South Africa’s reply was rubbish. This is why they lost.

So frustrated by their ineptitude, that the Saffer wicket keeper, Mark Boucher, began to slap the faces of surrounding players with his glove, followed by some sound punching and then he tripped them up with a cricket bat which has recently grown from his mid-rift.

In another match, the Australians continued their domination of non-Zimbabwean countries, and saw off Sri Lanka, who were sabotaged by over-optimistic batting. Both Sri Lanka and South Africa are knocked out, leaving fans supporting teams beginning with the letter “S” reeling.

The semi-finals are thus constituted:

Australia vs. India
New Zealand vs. Pakistan

I was going to toss a coin to “predict” all the results of tournament. Then I realised how many games there were, and how lazy I was, so I didn’t. Now the work-load is a manageable three games, I shall now provide you with the full results. Let the tossing begin!

Australia heads: heads it is. Australia will win its semi. New Zealand heads: tails. Pakistan wins. And now the final. Australia heads: heads it is. Australia wins the bloody thing.

Wasn’t that exciting? I didn’t even cheat. It could have saved you a lot of money if you just flipped a coin, instead of paying for an expensive ticket out to South Africa. Still, at least you get to enjoy the beauty of SA’s most refined city: Johannesburg.

England beaten by stick cricketers

Well, the final indignity is metered out to English fans everywhere, and, in one small mercy, England are knocked out of the twenty20 World Championship by a rampant India, and the pain can stop.

In a performance reminiscent of stick cricket, Yuvraj Singh played possibly the best innings in limited-over history, by striking a blistering, crashing, tumultuous 58 runs off…. 16 balls. Yes, you read that correctly; 16 balls.

This astonishing feat was aided by six sixes from Stuart Broad’s final over. Apparently, this achievement has been recorded three times in international cricket, not least by Hershelle Gibbs recently, but this was off quality opposition, and under some pressure. Yuvraj ignored all this, and simply battered England.

It is testament to his innings that England, despite putting in an unusually spirited run-chase, never seemed close. Indeed, that they lost by only 18 runs shows you the importance of this lunatic hitting.

It is really an unimaginably amazing achievement. I don’t even think I’ve struck that on a computer game; even when I put it on “easy” and practice it for hours and hours whilst pretending to work.

This man hits a cricket ball cleaner than I can click a mouse.

This one innings rather softened the blow of England’s defeat. I may have something to say about that, but for now I’m happy to revel in the impossibility of what has just happened.

In other good news, Australia lost to an incredible charge Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq, who put on 119 together in a seemingly doomed situation. An Australia loss is just as good as an England victory in my books. Sadly, neither of these things are particularly likely. But we must be grateful for what we can get.

We must also be thankful that Scotland are so bad. This brings me great pleasure.

England prove that gambling is wrong

Well, there goes my hard-earned £10. Thanks very much England cricket team.

Once again, England threw away a strong position, and contrived to knock themselves out of the tournament, by losing to New Zealand by five runs. After a solid start from the openers, England found themselves 62 for the loss of no wicket chasing 164.

This was always England’s match. A good bowling performance restricted the Kiwis to a reasonable score. Darren Maddy played unexpectedly well by destroying the New Zealand middle order by taking two wickets and effecting a run-out in one over. His fifty was also class.

The loss of Pratty Prior seemed to be a real benefit, with Vikram Solanki keeping and batting well. Maybe he’s someone that we could consider as a serious long term replacement? You can’t get much worse than the current wicket keeping standards, and there’s certainly superior batting there.

Anyway, what is important is England’s lameness. Their total inability to drive home the advantage. Their incompetence. Their lack of ruthlessness. Their crapness. All these factors converge to deny me my rightful winnings from the bookies.

England, heed these words: You Are Rubbish.

I’m not in that bad a mood though. Even though I listened to England’s defeat over the radio, I got to listen to the TMS theme tune at the end of the broadcast. It is impossible not to feel great after listening to that.

EVERYONE: tap-tap tap tap tip-tip tip tap tap DAH-DAH! DAH DAAH!!!

DAH DAH-DAH DAAAH DAH-DAH-DAH!

Victory slips through England’s hands

England should have beaten South Africa. In stead, they opted for defeat. They managed this intriguing tactic by a number of means: dropping a major wicket at every opportunity and refusing to hit boundaries.

This revolutionary approach to the twenty20 format successfully ensured a loss.

The South African responded by saying, “ha ha ha” and later added, “we beat you at rugby.” They didn’t see it coming, to be honest, look at the surprise on Shaun Pollock’s face.

Why it is, when the England team apparently look alright, they construe to be woeful? I don’t know. I’m especially annoyed because I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and backed the buggers to the tune of £10. I should have plugged for Australia, at 4/1. £40 would hae come in handy...

Interestingly, after projected my thoughts to Paul Collingwood he actually adhered to my advice. Firstly, he decided to field first, which I think is probably the best approach to twenty20. Secondly, he constantly fiddled his bowlers, with most spells lasting no longer than an over. It gave the batsman limited time to line-up the bowlers – and they struggled especially with the quicks.

However, my favourite, Chris Schofield was the difference between the teams. The South Africans battered the slow bowlers (with the leggie going for three consecutive sixes at one point). Whereas England had no similar easy weakling to score heavily off.

I think that the most successful approach to twenty20 would be flexibility. It may be an idea to go to a ground with a squad of say 14, and then whittle it down eleven based on the conditions. Bowling another quick in Schofield’s place yesterday may have secured England the match, and given the conditions, one could have foreseen this.

Twenty20 is about quick thinking and adaptability. Listening to commentary it is crazy how unself-conscious the describers are. One over a bowler is bowling “dreadfully” and literally the following over he’s a “hero”. Things change so quickly that the players need to learn to adapt to changing circumstances quickly.

They also need oodles of luck.

Pakistan fail to hit a barn door

Of course, by “barn door” I mean the wickets. They couldn’t hit the wickets. Not even when they were trying to.

India earned the Ayalac seal of approval yesterday by beating Pakistan and thus knocking out the evil and probably corrupt Scots.

Moreover, the game itself was pretty good. A blinding 4-18 by the junky-no-more Mohammed Asif blew away the Indian upper-order. Robin Uthappa (50) and MS Dhoni (33) responded well to post a respectable 141.

Pakistan didn’t fair much better, with the Indian seamers bowling fairly well without having much twenty20 experience. Funny that. Anyway, some bloke I’ve never heard of scored a half-century, but, in sensational circumstances, the scored was tied on the final ball.

I was rather bemused by this. But in the wilds of the English countryside, they have a solution for such a problem: a bowl out. This was invented by strange bumpkins would had nothing better to do with they time other than bowling at unguarded stumps in the rain.

So inspired by the genius of this absurd ritual, the ICC (oh holy of smolies) copied the ridiculous procedure. And thus India won by three bowls out to zero. That’s right, the highly paid, experience and “good” bowlers of Pakistan could not even hit the stumps.

Some people say that “it’s really hard”. Because “there’s no batsman”. To them I say “shut up” and beat them with a rolled up newspaper. It is hard for us, because we’re crap; it’s easy for them, because they’re good. In fact, they’re in the side because they aren’t as crap as everyone else in their country.

They spend hours every day trying to hit the stumps. They don’t go to work, answer annoying emails or even pop around the shops for some milk. No, they spend every waking moment either practicing hitting stumps or thinking about hitting stumps. Pakistan: its time to invest in some spectacles.

England tossed up and eaten in salad

If Zimbabwe are better than Australia and England are better than Zimbabwe, then… Australia are better than England. That’s how crazy twenty20 is, it refutes Leibniz’s law.

England were supremely dispatched by Australia today, in a performance eerily similar to the same drubbing dished out in the other World Cup, held last week. Australia’s bowlers, although never seeming that dangerous, pinned England back to a low total. A score which proved an easy chase.

England’s chances of knocking out the Ausslers from the tournament rested on winning the toss and putting the Canaries into bat. This, Paul Collingwood duly did, but then decided that hara-kiri was the better part of valour, and opted to bat first. Australia obliged to England’s suicidal request, and accordingly put them to the sword.

Interestingly, it was the county twiddlers that proved the weakest component of the English set-up. The apparent experts in handling the demands of the format, crumbled at the first sign pressure.

Luke Wright failed ago, Darren Maddy failed to press on, Dimitri Mascarenhas looked less than intimidating and Chris Schofield reminded us all why he was dropped seven years ago. Rather, it was the international stalwarts that provided the backbone of England’s performance. It would be premature to say that the specialised dibbly-dobbly attack has failed, but it’s not looking dominant.

None of this matters though, because the Australians are wearing...that, that yellow thing. Watching them pranch around like yesterday's manky bananas makes the losing all worth while.

The India-Pakistan match looks good. We need to make sure that India wins, however. Otherwise, Scotland may go through. And that would be like Pol Pot winning the lottery.

Let’s try not to gloat

Many petty minded people would gloat because Australia lost to Zimbabwe, which is an intrinsically hilarious event. I am above such things.

I am not above saying I TOLD YOU SO, however. Let’s quote yesterday’s post:

I wouldn’t be surprised if Zimbabwe beat the Aussies. Or even won the World Bloody Championship.

And so it was. Australia, the mighty World Cup holding, Ashes Urn bearing monsters of the Antipodes were slain by teeny-weeny Zimbabwe.

Australia didn't lose because I made them, my Predictoron powers don't really apply in the twenty20 world, but because the randomness of the format did its thing. There was some skill shown by the Zimmers, but, you know, so what? Yeah?

Many people having been asking where The Predictoron went. Maybe I should bring it back for the new World Cup, they asked.

But, as stated elsewhere, you can’t actually predict the outcome of twenty20 matches. What you really need is a random number generator, and get that to crunch some stochastic statistics.

Of course, it would be absurd to say that the twenty20 was a ridiculous waste of time, where a bunch of blokes mess about on a field where strange, unexpected events emerge from tiny cricket vortexes to produce previously shocking results. It would be more correct to say: twenty20 is rubbish.

In other news, the terrifying Bangladesh knocked out the West Indies from the World Championship. Was that because the West Indies are terrible at batting? No, they’re pretty good at that. Awful at bowling? No, they’re ok. Dreadful fielders? Well, yes, but that really isn’t a decisive issue.

No, they simply received a bad role of the dice. They lost through bad luck.

Gayle gets runs with a bat

Although there has been a lot of truthful raging against the rubbishness of twenty20, I somehow found myself of being enthralled by one of those bastard matches.

I was mainly drawn in by the incredible batting of Chris Gayle. He managed to bludgeon the South African attack for 117 in just 57 balls – heaving 10 sixes in the process.

What compelled me to watch an otherwise impoverished format was the crazed, unorthodox stroke play. The photo is a case in point. He is standing well outside his leg-stump, standing tall and flays a cross-the-line slog. Even when the bowlers altered their line to follow him, he managed to adjust at the last minute and still club them for six, despite being totally out of position. Astonishing.

It is testament to his innings that the rest of his team affected a near-collapse after the fall of the wicket. The Windies’ inability to follow-up this foundation with an impregnable score rather gave the momentum to the Saffers.

The West Indies’ effort was also stymied by the disintegration of their fielding. I counted three drops that were near to dollies as you could ask in international cricket. Nevertheless, the random swinging of the bat by South Africa proved successful, and they eventually won by a handsome margin.

In other news, Kenya received a thumping by the hands of New Zealand. Mainly thanks to their new overweight bowler Mark Gillespie, who equalled The Atheist’s career best with 4-7. Kenya lost because the Kiwis spiked their tea – they put too much milk in, which would seriously affect anyone’s mental condition.

I am still standing by my randomness thesis. There will be plenty of upsets. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zimbabwe beat the Aussies. Or even won the World Bloody Championship.

20/1 against

The twenty-bloody-20 starts tomorrow. We in Ayalac try not to care. We are, however, obsessed with cricket. It is a difficult battle.

So, in a possibly meaningless warm-up game, South Africa defeated Australia. Mainly by bowling “swing" but also with an impressive batting performance by Graeme Smith. What does mean for the tournament? Nothing much really.

You see, it is all a part of the randomness that constitutes the format. Skill and knowledge aren’t really applicable, so there is no point in getting too excited about it. Those who are gamblers may fancy a few “out-side” bets, as bookers are sure to offer over-generous odds for unfancied side.

A quick scan on betfred.com revealed the Aussies to be firm favourites at 2/1. Which is frankly ludicrous. Whereas South Africa (4/1) and Sri Lanka (7/1) may offer reasonable rewards – even England (8/1) offer a good value bet. (Hence, a little £10 stake on his home country by The Atheist.)

However, where I think you may clean up is in the one-to-one bets. For instance, you can pick up Kenya beating Australia at 9/1, which is much more likely an occurrence than you would think.

Similar odds are offered in this tournament than in the World Cup, but this is an error by the bookies. Remember, the key rule to betting on twenty20 is bare in mind that odd-generation does not take into account the inherent stochastic nature of the format. That is to say, the outcome is as good as evens before the match begins. With this in mind, better value odds are evident and enables the keen punter to make a tidy profit.

(Ayalac does not encourage reckless gambling. Spending money costs lives.)

Shoaib Akhtar throws a wobbly.

Yesterday, Shoaib Akhtar apparently attacked fellow fast bowler Mohammed Asif with a cricket bat. The Pakistan Cricket Board swiftly acted to send him packing from the twenty20 world championship.

I suspect that Shoaib knew how rubbish the tournament was going to be, and tried to fight his way out. But the mighty thigh of Asif proved too much, and it repelled Shoaib’s frenzied escape.

As an unexpected side-effect, Shoaib’s conduct was seen as unacceptable, and thus he was sent back home. PCB chief executive Shafqat Nagmi.

"No one will be spared if he flouts the rules and team spirit. What has happened is something that has shocked us."

Yes, it was rather pathetic if hilarious behaviour, but who could blame him, what with the impending rubbishness.

Although, it is rather crazed, given that he has only just returned to the side after a two-year ban was quashed. You think that you would be on best behaviour. Well, you would if you were sane.

He’s also 32, which, by Stuart Broad’s standards, is pretty old. Shouldn’t he know that fighting your way out with a cricket bat is not effective? You’ve got to tunnel, man. Use the box.

The Twenty20 World Cup

Don’t get too excited. You won’t seem many posts here about this event.

I will, allow, however, a few mocking posts, snidely sniping from afar. Let us consider the injury list:

Ravi Bopara – widely regarded as the world’s best twenty20 player.
Andrew Flintoff – widely regarded as the world’s best all-rounder.
Jacques Kallis – widely regarded as a better all-rounder than Flintoff.
Ricky Ponting – widely regarded as smug and a bit daft in the head.

Some of the other missing players are:

Shane Watson
Muttiah Muralitharan
Sachin Tendulkar
Rahul Dravid
Stephen Fleming
Mohammad Yousuf
Inzamam-ul-Haq

That’s eleven players. If you stuck Watson in his proper position and made him a keeper you would have a winning team right there.

But you don’t, because all these clever individuals know how rubbish the twenty20 tournament is going to be. They each ingeniously contrived to be “unavailable” or “injured” or “dropped” in a cunning ruse to avoid this nasty championship.

Now, surely, it will be rubbish. Then people will say: “why didn’t we listen to Ayalac?” And the answer will come back “because we didn’t read it in the first place.”