Asia Cup 2014

The Asia Cup 2014 has started today in Bangladesh. Along with India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Afghanistan will also take the field in this tournament.

First game on now, as Sri Lanka are taking on Pakistan. After opener Lahiru Thirimanne made 102 and Kumar Sangakkara made 67, Sri Lanka were well placed at 189-2, but lost their way in between and are now 271-6 with skipper Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal, who came in at 8, trying to repair the middle order damage.

Afghanistan's performances, and the captaincy of Virat Kohli could be the major talkingpoints of tournament besides the usual cricket. The Afghans will be playing the next WWorld Cup as well as the upcoming World T-20. Their story has a lot going for other than the cricket. And their cricket is not shabby either, don't think many Indians would win a speed contest with some of their seamers. It will be interesting to see whether their batting has gained some maturity.

As MS Dhoni's overseas captaincy record is being scrutinized in India, his injury enforced absence from this tournament gives Kohli an opportunity to show his skills. Has to see whether he'll be particularly more aggressive with his field placings and bowling changes and stuff.

Mathews and Chandimal took their side to an eventual score of 296 with the skipper not out on 55 and Chandimal on 19.

Skipper Misbah-Ul-Haque made 73 and Umar Akmal scored 74, but Lasit Malinga, who had gone at over 6 an over in his first spell, eventually returned figures of 5 for 52 as Pakistan were bowled out for 284, 12 short of the Sri Lankan total.

there was an Asia Cup only last year   
i can't excite myself much to watch FTBs  on Flat tracks of bangladesh.

that said the game tody going by the score card proved fast in the air...bowling yorkers and reversing type bolwers make a diffrence even on flat pitches

From an outsiders point of view, when BM was on about 140, Dhoni had no slips and BM edged the ball there and that would have been match over in Indians favour.

Several instances in that Test where Dhoni lacked a killer instinct. Not a good Captain!

I see pancake batsman Sangakkara is still enjoying these batting friendly conditions...

KP_fan wrote:there was an Asia Cup only last year   
i can't excite myself much to watch FTBs  on Flat tracks of bangladesh.

that said the game tody going by the score card proved fast in the air...bowling yorkers and reversing type bolwers make a diffrence even on flat pitches

KPF, the last Asia Cup was in 2012 when Tendulkar scored his ton of tons.

Bangladesh v India today, India won the toss and are bowling.

Cheteshwar Pujara has to keep warming the bench yet again. Rahane, Rayudu and Rohit Sharma are playing, with Dinesh Karthik coming in for the injured Dhoni. Thankfully there is no Ishant Sharma, Shami, Kumar and Aaron make the pace unit, Jadeja and Ashwin with spin duties.
Bangladesh are missing Tamim Iqbal due to injury, and Shakib Al Hasan due to a 3 match bann he received from the BCB for conduct unbecoming of an international player.

Bangladesh 36-1 after 10 overs. Mohammed Shami with the wicket.

Bangladesh 152-2 in 32 overs. Anamul Haque and Mushfiqur Rahim at the crease.

Both batsmen have brought up their half-centuries.

The 3rd wicket partnership is broken at last, by the otherwise expensive Varun Aaron, who has gone through Anamul and bowled him for a well made 77. Aaron has figures of 1 for 56 in his 7 overs. Bangladesh not missing Ishant Sharma!.

Well Aaron at least has lived up to the hype regarding his pace ...even if thats just led to him leaking runs all over the place.
Seems he has two modes...Bresnan and (drunk) Harmison.

India faltering in chase so far...openers gone without converting the starts

someone posted on CI.......

CI wrote:Aabhas: "To put things into perspective, Kohli has had 10 more innings than Rohit Sharma and in those 10 more innings, he already has 2232 more runs that Rohit."

Kohli goes like a jet after 50 to 100 and like a rocket once past the 100.

Rahane showing his class with assured-ness.....makes a difference when the captain is not setting you up to fail....like Dhoni's grudging inclusion of Rahane

Comfortable 6 wicket win for India. Virat Kohli gets yet another hundred chasing a good total. The only change from the usual script was that he wasn't there at the end though by the time Rubel Hossain got him with a good Yorker, the win was pretty much in the bag. A good effort from Rahane as well. Failures for the openers with the bat, and for Aaron with the ball. Bhuvneshwar Kumar too isn't picking enough wickets these days. R Ashwin did a decent impersonation of Sunil Narine in the initial stages of his action and got a wicket with his first ball, but after that it was more or less the recent less than average stuff. Ravindra Jadeja didn't get a wicket, but none for 37 in 10 overs was a fine effort from him.

BD without Rahim, Shakib, Tamim Iqbal, Mortaza might not play next game either, Afg got a chance here

Pakistan beat Afghanistan by 72 runs, largely thanks to a ton from Umar Akmal, and very tight bowling from Afridi.

some good bowlers in their ranks, its the batting that isn't up to mark.

Afghans already more promising than pathetic Bangladesh have ever been.

msp83 wrote:some good bowlers in their ranks, its the batting that isn't up to mark.

 

Watched some of it today, the batsman just did not have the range of shots against the tighter bowling of one of the bigger boys. But time will improve that.

At 120/2, they should not be needing over seven per over when only chasing a middling score.

Its that far too familiar match up today, India v Sri Lanka. India are put in to bat. They've dropped Varun Aaron for Stuart Binny. Lanka are going in with 3 spinners. India are 141-2 after 29 overs. Rohit Sharma failed again as he was out for a 28 ball 13. Virat Kohli made 48 before he was done in by Ajantha Mendis. Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane at the crease.

Failures for Rahane, Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik. Stuart Binny goes for a duck. India in massive trouble at 215-7.

Has the ICC stopped its crackdown on suspect actions?

They went out if their way to ban Johan Botha countless times.

Yet a chucker like Senanayake is allowed to play international cricket.

It's absurd.

Sanga remains in prolific form. Saving SL from a precarious position to help guide them home against India with another fine century.  Shami getting a JD type spanking but 3 wkts.

India 264/9. 

SL  265/8.

A close encounter, and Sangakkara's brilliance became the difference in the end. Good show from Jadeja, and Ashwin bowled a very good spell in quite some time. Shami was expensive but kept taking the wickets. Perhaps had India gone for Amit Mishra in place of the non-international class Binny.......???

Kumar Sangakarra = legend.

Binny's gotta be given 10 games to prove himself.
he came to bat at No.8 and didn't do bad in his 4 overs for 22

KPF, he never looked like taking a wicket. When he came into bat, there were enough overs to get a few quick runs. And anyways, Mishra would have suited this track more.

Disgraceful that we're not looking beyond DK as MSD's backup in ODIs. The guy is an utter disaster at int'l level.

Rohit's honeymoon period is over. After bashing the Australians on the flattest pitches in ODI history, he's well and truly back in "Nohit" mode. If only we had a technically sound yet aggressive top order batsman in the squad of proven test class and boasting of one of the domestic limited overs records in history............... Oh Wait!

Ashwin finally turning in a decent performance after making a complete mockery of himself with the constant fiddling with actions every other game and heck, every other over. Not sure its good for the team as he has probably earned a free pass to suck his a** for the next 10 games.

Special innings from Sanga, by the way! He is in one hell of a nick.

ShankyCricket wrote:Disgraceful that we're not looking beyond DK as MSD's backup in ODIs. The guy is an utter disaster at int'l level.

DK is the captain and senior general manager of India Cements club and hence imperative on selectors to give him opportunity in international games

Afghanistan posted 254-6 from 50 overs and Bangladesh are 123-4 in the 34th over in reply.

Bangladesh need more than 8 an over to win the game in just under 12 overs. It is anybody's game at the moment.

an upset brewing up in Asia cup.
Those who might have bet on Afganistan stand to win handsome returns today.

Bangladesh should be relegated to the inter-continental level.

They are woeful.

Aside from the odd fluke win, they are rubbish.

I'm starting to think within 18-30 months, Afghanistan will be ready for Test cricket

Gerry SA wrote:Bangladesh should be relegated to the inter-continental level.

They are woeful.

Aside from the odd fluke win, they are rubbish.

I'm starting to think within 18-30 months, Afghanistan will be ready for Test cricket

BD, Afganistan, Zim and WI and Ind are nations that really do not care for test match cricket

KP_fan wrote:

Gerry SA wrote:Bangladesh should be relegated to the inter-continental level.

They are woeful.

Aside from the odd fluke win, they are rubbish.

I'm starting to think within 18-30 months, Afghanistan will be ready for Test cricket

BD, Afganistan, Zim and WI and Ind are nations that really do not care for test match cricket

Zimbabwe have produced great players, they care greatly about Test cricket.

Gerry SA wrote:

KP_fan wrote:

Gerry SA wrote:Bangladesh should be relegated to the inter-continental level.

They are woeful.

Aside from the odd fluke win, they are rubbish.

I'm starting to think within 18-30 months, Afghanistan will be ready for Test cricket

BD, Afganistan, Zim and WI and Ind are nations that really do not care for test match cricket

Zimbabwe have produced great players, they care greatly about Test cricket.

I doubt they care much beyond....... finding money to pay salaries to their cricketers.......

I do not believe other than Eng any nation cares only for test cricket

Afghanistan claim a historic victory.

Their first ODI win against a full ICC Test playing nation.

Congrats!

As for Bangladesh, ICC needs to revoke all international status. Rubbish side that aren't even competitive at home.

fantastic from Afghanistan! Very well done to them!

i think afghanistan's victory emphasizes how stupid this status thing is...the higher associates regularly beat the lower full members and in my opinion there is little difference between the sides. Why do countries of similar cricketing ability receive vastly different amounts of money and benefits?

Afghanistan really are a much better side with Hamid Hassan in there! He gives them a real boost with both bat and ball!

atletico86 wrote:i think afghanistan's victory emphasizes how stupid this status thing is...the higher associates regularly beat the lower full members and in my opinion there is little difference between the sides. Why do countries of similar cricketing ability receive vastly different amounts of money and benefits?

The idea was to support Bangladesh and their development. At the time Afgahnaistan was still an utter backwater.
What its actually proved is that including boards in the club and chucking money at them is not the way to development success. Its just promoted laziness and corruption in Bangladeshi cricket, and that has also set in for the west indies and to some extent sri lanka too.

Its exactly this thats caused the "big 3" to say theyve had enough of the parasites.

Id be careful about the number of associate vs full member victories though (beyond ones over zim/bang) ...theres at least one that was so obviously influenced by fixing to the point the commentators at the time even had the guts to allude to it.

That aside its good to see a new board making an impact even if its somewhat built on a house of sand and very little of the money going toward developing a real grassroots structure. Again one of the positives (thats sometimes held as a stick to beat the ICC with) is that theyve demanded boards invest in developing a functional first class cricket system in their country to become full members so that the money doesnt just go to a tiny cadre of elite players/administrators.

The rise of Afghani cricket in such a short time is remarkable, well done them. I certainly agree they are more worthy of ICC investment than Bangladesh is. Involvement and success in international sport is also a great way of integrating a country thats been isolated for its entire modern history from the global community and could help to drive modernisation of attitudes. Not too sure Id want to sit next to the Barmy Mujahideem at a test match though!

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

atletico86 wrote:i think afghanistan's victory emphasizes how stupid this status thing is...the higher associates regularly beat the lower full members and in my opinion there is little difference between the sides. Why do countries of similar cricketing ability receive vastly different amounts of money and benefits?

The idea was to support Bangladesh and their development. At the time Afgahnaistan was still an utter backwater.
What its actually proved is that including boards in the club and chucking money at them is not the way to development success. Its just promoted laziness and corruption in Bangladeshi cricket, and that has also set in for the west indies and to some extent sri lanka too.

Its exactly this thats caused the "big 3" to say theyve had enough of the parasites.

Id be careful about the number of associate vs full member victories though (beyond ones over zim/bang) ...theres at least one that was so obviously influenced by fixing to the point the commentators at the time even had the guts to allude to it.

That aside its good to see a new board making an impact even if its somewhat built on a house of sand and very little of the money going toward developing a real grassroots structure.  Again one of the positives (thats sometimes held as a stick to beat the ICC with) is that theyve demanded boards invest in developing a functional first class cricket system in their country to become full members  so that the money doesnt just go to a tiny cadre of elite players/administrators.

The rise of Afghani cricket in such a short time is remarkable, well done them. I certainly agree they are more worthy of ICC investment than Bangladesh is. Involvement and success in international sport is also a great way of integrating a country thats been isolated for its entire modern history from the global community and could help to drive modernisation of attitudes. Not too sure Id want to sit next to the Barmy Mujahideem at a test match though!

In which upset did the manager's allude to that?
Personally I don't think the result of the Bangladesh Afghanistan match was a surprise, bangladesh have lost to both scotland and holland in the last couple of years. Personally I think Bangladesh were promoted to provide more voting power to the Asian block but that's neither here nor there.

In the last 2 weeks we have seen two associates beat two different full members; therefore emphasizing the fact that the stronger associates can compete with the weaker full members. Yet they do not receive hardly any voting rights or a fraction of the ICC handouts, despite being able to compete on a level playing field as the full members. Wouldn't happen in any other sport and I don't really see any justifiable reason for it.

i do not trust BD, Pak and all IPL games