Cricket News and Round of 16 Update

India vs. West Indies Test Series in W.I.

From: BBC Sport: Cricket

After losing to the W.I. in the one-day series 4-1 in a very disappointing fashion, the three match test series has ended in a draw. The picture above is of Dravid and Laxman celebrating their century stand during the second innings from the last test. One thing is clear from the test series and that's that India was CLEARLY the better team. The Indies survived barely to a draw by one wicket in the first test. Then rain bailed them out to what seemed to be a certain loss in the second test. And now, even after pinning down India in the first innings of the third test, India came back to draw the game with the Indies leading by less than 100 runs when time ran out. India must, however, be getting valuable experience with the pitches in the Caribbean for next year's world cup. However, the world cup is in one-day format, and it was disappointing to see India lose the one-day series by a 4-1 margin. On a positive note, three of those games were one ball away from being in India's favor; also India was incorporating a lot of youth into its roster to infuse them with experience rather than using all the usual big guns. On a negative note, West Indies are a relatively young team (barring three main players) and India should have still won that series as they had more than ample weapons in their arsenal with Dravid, Sehwag, and Yuvraj. It was more disappointing to see India lose it abroad while just getting in the rhythm by beating Pakistan in Pakistan and England and Sri Lanka at home. They are still not as ruthless as the Aussies. While on the subject of the Aussies, I do believe they are finally starting to look vulnerable after losing the Ashes earlier, a loss to Bangladesh on a one-day match, and then losing the one day series down in South Africa in the final match of that series which was praised by many as the greatest one-day match ever played.

Round of 16 Update

From today's two matches, two more teams have emerged for the quarterfinals- Italy and Ukraine. Italy beat Australia, and Ukraine beat Switzerland. They will play against each other on June 30th, @ 3 P.M. From my analysis, I don't think Ukraine has a shot in the quarterfinals. After watching Ukraine play Switzerland, which I admit was a very boring game, I do not believe either team would have survived in the quarterfinals. The Swiss, surprisingly, went out as the only team to not have given up a goal in regulation time so far in the World Cup. After a tie game between Ukraine and the Swiss after regulation time and OT, the match came down to the best of 5 penalty kicks. Ukraine missed the first, and then made 3 successive (none very impressive) goals while the Swiss were unable to sink even one goal in the net.

Prediction from the Italy vs. Ukraine game to be played on June 30th @ 3 P.M. (EST):

Yep, you guessed it, Italia.