If you had been on the island of Nusakambangan, just south of Java, at around midnight last night, you may have heard a familiar sound.
Voices, singing harmoniously, to a familiar tune.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.
Upon hearing this, you may have headed towards the sound, to discover what it was that had made this chorus of people sing to the Lord. Perhaps some folks came out on holiday, and are enjoying creation.
As you made your way through the rain forest, things may start to seem out of place. Barbed wire. A fence. Concrete. Bright spotlights.
Getting through all this, you find the people you're looking for.
They aren't all around a fire, camping in the wilderness.
They are in a prison compound, unable to move. They are tied to stakes in the ground, wide-eyed, staring across to the other side of the compound, where soldiers wait with guns at the ready. They are facing death.
They are singing.
In the last minutes of their lives on earth, they sing of eternity in heaven.
When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.
Then a new song begins.
ratatatatatatatatat
Then, when death has played its song, silence is the sound of Nusakambagan.
In the distance, you hear other songs. The wailing of family and friends, knowing that their loved ones are with them no more. The rumbling of vehicles, coming to take away the bodies that had minutes before housed a living soul. The muttering of soldiers, having performed their duty for the country. The flashes of photographers, capturing the moments of emotional pain that will sear into memories for decades to come.
But beyond this earth, there is another song. It is a chorus of people, singing the first song of an eternity spent with their Lord.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.
Wednesday 29 April 2015
Thursday 16 April 2015
Truths, lies, and the Australian federation
The lead-up to today's COAG meeting has drawn a significant amount of discussion, speculation and arguing. Despite the Prime Minister's announcement that the main topics of discussion would be "domestic violence, national security and the ice epidemic", all the talk has been about money. Specifically, the amount of money being taken from Western Australia and given to the rest of the country.
Claims about the fairness or lack thereof of the Commonwealth Grants Commission's recommendations have been flying across the Nullabor, with Western Australia feeling aggrieved at their share of GST revenue collapsing even further, down to 30c for every dollar paid. This is occurring as the mining boom has ended, with iron prices dropping to about a third of their peak price. The Western Australian government has forecast their deficit to balloon from $1.3 billion to $3 billion.
Western Australia's anger has been matched by the rest of the country, who refuse to consider any loss of revenue that would happen if the CGC's recommendations were not used. This is understandable, as dividing up a set of of money between eight parties is necessarily a zero-sum game. But over the past week there has been so much said, by the governments and the media alike, that what is truth and what is fiction has become difficult to spot.
So, it's time figure out once and for all who's telling the truth about what.
Claim: The percentage of Western Australia's revenue that it is receiving back is smaller than any other state or territory has received historically.
Response: Seems to be true. The Commonwealth Grants Commission was established in 1933 to assess claims made by the state governments to the federal government for special assistance. The way in which it has redistributed, and what it has redistributed, has changed over the years, as far as we can find, no state has ever had such a large yearly contribution to the Commonwealth distributed to other states since 1942, the year the Commonwealth government gained control of income tax and began redistributing funds to all the states.
Claim: Western Australia will have to borrow money to pay its contribution to the CGC.
Response: Probably the simplest way of putting it. The Grants Commission is making its recommendations on, amongst other things, the assumption of an iron ore price that is no longer true. The gap between the estimated iron ore price, and the real iron ore price, is expected to be a deficit of $500 million this financial year. As Western Australia is currently running a deficit, it will have to borrow more money than it had predicted to make up for the gap in GST revenue.
Claim: Western Australia has to make economic reforms before it can receive assistance.
Response: This claim, which has been made by a number of state and federal politicians, is a stretch. The federal politicians to have suggested it are those in the government who support widespread privatisation. The state politicians who have suggested it come from states who have done likewise. There are separate problems with their suggestions. The federal government has no power to tie GST to state reforms. The Grants Commission only considers the ability for a state to finance itself equal to every other state. The Commonwealth could, theoretically, offer Western Australia a tied grant, with the tie being these 'economic reforms'. But such a tie is not legally binding, and the ties are generally that the funds be spent on a specific project or area, not that it would be used to cut a deficit on the condition of policy changes. Besides, the WA government would never agree to such a grant in the first place.
The state governments are not in any position to tell another state how they should be run, particularly when their 'economic reforms' haven't been the reason they have stayed afloat recently. In the case of some states, they have only stayed afloat because of revenue taken from better performing states...such as Western Australia. The reforms in question tend to be the dreams of the neoliberal: further deregulation of trading hours and selling of state assets. Neither of these would fix the deficit in the short term, and would cause problems in the long term. There is also a certain irony in Labor governments telling a Liberal/National government to privatise their assets.
Claim: Western Australia is only complaining now that the boom is over.
Response: Not true. Western Australia has been warning the rest of the country of the potential consequences of this method of equalisation since at least 2008. But, because WA was doing so well, it was ignored.
Claim: Western Australia has wasted its boom and is now getting its just desserts.
Response: Has Western Australia misspent its revenue during the boom? If so, on what? The answer is pretty simple: infrastructure. In 2006, Western Australia was estimated to have a population of 2 million. As of now, that number is around 2.6 million. The mining boom brought a massive number of people to the state, and the wealth being generated elsewhere had to be provided for. WA's infrastructure was not yet ready for this. In many regional areas of the state, local infrastructure had been neglected for decades. The WA Nationals successfully ran on a scheme of 'Royalties for Regions', which guaranteed that a proportion of mining royalties would be spent in regional areas, bringing their infrastructure up to scratch. The cost of doing this cannot be underestimated, as any quick scan of an atlas might show you. The cost of delivering services in Western Australia is the second highest in the nation, behind the Northern Territory. In Perth, too, billions has been and is still being spent on infrastructure projects. Much of this has been to cope with a population that has just reached 2 million, up from 1.5 million in 2006. This cannot be rightly claimed to be a misspending of finances Many of these projects also bring the city up to speed with its rivals in the eastern states, which brings us to our next claim...
Claim: The GST distribution is fair/The GST distribution is not fair.
Response: Each side is claiming 'fairness' is on their side. Indeed, fairness is the whole point of the CGC and its distribution process. Specifically, the CGC states its aim is that:
"State governments should receive funding from the pool of GST revenue such that...each would have the fiscal capacity to provide services and the associated infrastructure at the same standard..."
In essence, each state should be able to provide the same services as each other. This is, in actual fact, what the Western Australian government has been doing. Two new hospitals, a new stadium, better public transport and a city waterfront centre in the capital, matching what other capital cities have. The regions, meanwhile, have had their services brought up to the kind of standard expected in bigger regional centres. This is exactly what the CGC redistribution is meant to do. Except the Western Australian government has done it despite, not because of, the redistribution. WA bringing itself up to speed with the rest of the country is entirely of its own doing, and now it is, perversely, being punished for it.
On the other hand, there is reason to claim that a changing of the distribution now is unfair, given that (in theory) the redistribution should, in some way, balance out over time. But that is rather shaky ground to stand on, as it assumes that everything else will remain equal. We all know that no such thing happens.
Claim: Western Australia thought the boom would never end and failed to see this situation coming.
Response: The WA government knew the boom would end, and, as stated earlier, foresaw the potential pitfalls of the GST redistribution well before this year. But no-one expected the drop-off in iron ore revenue to be quite as large as it has been, and here it can be argued that WA had a misstep, in that they thought the boom would end more gradually than it has. There were budget preparations already, but the speed at which further infrastructure projects have had to be held back shows that the end of the boom came quickly. Really, though, they should have accounted for the possibility of a quick end to the boom. The resources sector is hardly renowned for stability.
Claim: Western Australia is being greedy/the eastern states are being greedy.
Response: The claims here are slightly different. The claim against Western Australia is that they had their fair share during, and now want even more. This is a very basic way to try and understand a complex issue, and we have already examined the concept of fairness. But, again, why should Western Australia be punished for creating wealth in a state where providing services comes at a high cost?
The claim against the eastern states is that they are only looking short term. But who can blame them? The budget of the WA government is not their responsibility, and they only need to be interested in what affects their state. This may have consequences in the long term for them, but it is unlikely any state will be affected as badly as WA has. In the short term, their only interest is getting the greatest win possible in a zero sum game.
Claim: The states need to sort it out amongst themselves, as it is not a federal responsibility.
Response: This statement, which has been said by a number of government ministers over the last week, makes no sense. GST distribution is done by the federal government, as GST is collected by the Australian Tax Office and redistributed to the states according to the federal government's CGC. It is the very definition of a federal responsibility. If the federal government does not want this responsibility, then they should be considering wider tax reform which frees the states to not be reliant on federal government income. Until then, the federal government must take responsibility for this issue.
Claim: Western Australia has benefited from Commonwealth grants for decades and is now being hypocritical.
Response: This is probably the crux of every claim being made. Ultimately, it comes down history, as it's your knowledge of history that will affect the way you view the present. This idea that Western Australia has been a beneficiary from federal government redistribution for most of its history is a well-worn and oft-repeated one. One article from The Drum on this matter essentially made this point, in a way that is as patronising as possible. Many internet commentators have been saying similar things. So, is it true?
It is true that Western Australia has received Commonwealth grants for much of its history. If we simply viewed this in isolation, that would be that. Of course, it isn't that simple. Prior to federation, WA was actually a thriving colony, although it had taken a while to get there. Post federation, WA's economy slumped so badly that a Royal Commission was called to figure out what had gone so wrong. The answer? Federation.
Yes, the federation that WA had cautiously joined had turned out to have an enormous negative impact on the WA economy. The Commonwealth had in place a strong system of protectionism, which was great if you had an economy that didn't rely heavily on exports. Western Australia, however, had an economy that heavily relied on exports. The reason that Western Australia was being granted funds by the federal government had little to do with Western Australia - it was essentially compensation for being hit hard by tariffs and restrictions on free trade. This is no surprise when you keep in mind how WA essentially had to lured into joining the federation with constitutional oddities (eg. section 95) and assorted promises.
So, for many years Western Australia was punished for the nature of its economy, not because of its own failures. But then there's the claim that it's only been since the mining boom began that Western Australia started paying its own way. This, too, is false. Western Australia has been a net donor to the federation since the 1980s, arguably since even earlier.
Certainly, since the removal of protectionism, the state has been able to pay its way. The claim that WA is just being silly and should pipe down, which is often the gist of many of the claims made, is massively unhelpful.
What this argy-bargy is clearly demonstrating, above all, is that the current distribution of wealth between governments is not right, and widespread reform is necessary. A band-aid solution will not fix the current situation.
Claims about the fairness or lack thereof of the Commonwealth Grants Commission's recommendations have been flying across the Nullabor, with Western Australia feeling aggrieved at their share of GST revenue collapsing even further, down to 30c for every dollar paid. This is occurring as the mining boom has ended, with iron prices dropping to about a third of their peak price. The Western Australian government has forecast their deficit to balloon from $1.3 billion to $3 billion.
Western Australia's anger has been matched by the rest of the country, who refuse to consider any loss of revenue that would happen if the CGC's recommendations were not used. This is understandable, as dividing up a set of of money between eight parties is necessarily a zero-sum game. But over the past week there has been so much said, by the governments and the media alike, that what is truth and what is fiction has become difficult to spot.
So, it's time figure out once and for all who's telling the truth about what.
Claim: The percentage of Western Australia's revenue that it is receiving back is smaller than any other state or territory has received historically.
Response: Seems to be true. The Commonwealth Grants Commission was established in 1933 to assess claims made by the state governments to the federal government for special assistance. The way in which it has redistributed, and what it has redistributed, has changed over the years, as far as we can find, no state has ever had such a large yearly contribution to the Commonwealth distributed to other states since 1942, the year the Commonwealth government gained control of income tax and began redistributing funds to all the states.
Claim: Western Australia will have to borrow money to pay its contribution to the CGC.
Response: Probably the simplest way of putting it. The Grants Commission is making its recommendations on, amongst other things, the assumption of an iron ore price that is no longer true. The gap between the estimated iron ore price, and the real iron ore price, is expected to be a deficit of $500 million this financial year. As Western Australia is currently running a deficit, it will have to borrow more money than it had predicted to make up for the gap in GST revenue.
Claim: Western Australia has to make economic reforms before it can receive assistance.
Response: This claim, which has been made by a number of state and federal politicians, is a stretch. The federal politicians to have suggested it are those in the government who support widespread privatisation. The state politicians who have suggested it come from states who have done likewise. There are separate problems with their suggestions. The federal government has no power to tie GST to state reforms. The Grants Commission only considers the ability for a state to finance itself equal to every other state. The Commonwealth could, theoretically, offer Western Australia a tied grant, with the tie being these 'economic reforms'. But such a tie is not legally binding, and the ties are generally that the funds be spent on a specific project or area, not that it would be used to cut a deficit on the condition of policy changes. Besides, the WA government would never agree to such a grant in the first place.
The state governments are not in any position to tell another state how they should be run, particularly when their 'economic reforms' haven't been the reason they have stayed afloat recently. In the case of some states, they have only stayed afloat because of revenue taken from better performing states...such as Western Australia. The reforms in question tend to be the dreams of the neoliberal: further deregulation of trading hours and selling of state assets. Neither of these would fix the deficit in the short term, and would cause problems in the long term. There is also a certain irony in Labor governments telling a Liberal/National government to privatise their assets.
Claim: Western Australia is only complaining now that the boom is over.
Response: Not true. Western Australia has been warning the rest of the country of the potential consequences of this method of equalisation since at least 2008. But, because WA was doing so well, it was ignored.
Claim: Western Australia has wasted its boom and is now getting its just desserts.
Response: Has Western Australia misspent its revenue during the boom? If so, on what? The answer is pretty simple: infrastructure. In 2006, Western Australia was estimated to have a population of 2 million. As of now, that number is around 2.6 million. The mining boom brought a massive number of people to the state, and the wealth being generated elsewhere had to be provided for. WA's infrastructure was not yet ready for this. In many regional areas of the state, local infrastructure had been neglected for decades. The WA Nationals successfully ran on a scheme of 'Royalties for Regions', which guaranteed that a proportion of mining royalties would be spent in regional areas, bringing their infrastructure up to scratch. The cost of doing this cannot be underestimated, as any quick scan of an atlas might show you. The cost of delivering services in Western Australia is the second highest in the nation, behind the Northern Territory. In Perth, too, billions has been and is still being spent on infrastructure projects. Much of this has been to cope with a population that has just reached 2 million, up from 1.5 million in 2006. This cannot be rightly claimed to be a misspending of finances Many of these projects also bring the city up to speed with its rivals in the eastern states, which brings us to our next claim...
Claim: The GST distribution is fair/The GST distribution is not fair.
Response: Each side is claiming 'fairness' is on their side. Indeed, fairness is the whole point of the CGC and its distribution process. Specifically, the CGC states its aim is that:
"State governments should receive funding from the pool of GST revenue such that...each would have the fiscal capacity to provide services and the associated infrastructure at the same standard..."
In essence, each state should be able to provide the same services as each other. This is, in actual fact, what the Western Australian government has been doing. Two new hospitals, a new stadium, better public transport and a city waterfront centre in the capital, matching what other capital cities have. The regions, meanwhile, have had their services brought up to the kind of standard expected in bigger regional centres. This is exactly what the CGC redistribution is meant to do. Except the Western Australian government has done it despite, not because of, the redistribution. WA bringing itself up to speed with the rest of the country is entirely of its own doing, and now it is, perversely, being punished for it.
On the other hand, there is reason to claim that a changing of the distribution now is unfair, given that (in theory) the redistribution should, in some way, balance out over time. But that is rather shaky ground to stand on, as it assumes that everything else will remain equal. We all know that no such thing happens.
Claim: Western Australia thought the boom would never end and failed to see this situation coming.
Response: The WA government knew the boom would end, and, as stated earlier, foresaw the potential pitfalls of the GST redistribution well before this year. But no-one expected the drop-off in iron ore revenue to be quite as large as it has been, and here it can be argued that WA had a misstep, in that they thought the boom would end more gradually than it has. There were budget preparations already, but the speed at which further infrastructure projects have had to be held back shows that the end of the boom came quickly. Really, though, they should have accounted for the possibility of a quick end to the boom. The resources sector is hardly renowned for stability.
Claim: Western Australia is being greedy/the eastern states are being greedy.
Response: The claims here are slightly different. The claim against Western Australia is that they had their fair share during, and now want even more. This is a very basic way to try and understand a complex issue, and we have already examined the concept of fairness. But, again, why should Western Australia be punished for creating wealth in a state where providing services comes at a high cost?
The claim against the eastern states is that they are only looking short term. But who can blame them? The budget of the WA government is not their responsibility, and they only need to be interested in what affects their state. This may have consequences in the long term for them, but it is unlikely any state will be affected as badly as WA has. In the short term, their only interest is getting the greatest win possible in a zero sum game.
Claim: The states need to sort it out amongst themselves, as it is not a federal responsibility.
Response: This statement, which has been said by a number of government ministers over the last week, makes no sense. GST distribution is done by the federal government, as GST is collected by the Australian Tax Office and redistributed to the states according to the federal government's CGC. It is the very definition of a federal responsibility. If the federal government does not want this responsibility, then they should be considering wider tax reform which frees the states to not be reliant on federal government income. Until then, the federal government must take responsibility for this issue.
Claim: Western Australia has benefited from Commonwealth grants for decades and is now being hypocritical.
Response: This is probably the crux of every claim being made. Ultimately, it comes down history, as it's your knowledge of history that will affect the way you view the present. This idea that Western Australia has been a beneficiary from federal government redistribution for most of its history is a well-worn and oft-repeated one. One article from The Drum on this matter essentially made this point, in a way that is as patronising as possible. Many internet commentators have been saying similar things. So, is it true?
It is true that Western Australia has received Commonwealth grants for much of its history. If we simply viewed this in isolation, that would be that. Of course, it isn't that simple. Prior to federation, WA was actually a thriving colony, although it had taken a while to get there. Post federation, WA's economy slumped so badly that a Royal Commission was called to figure out what had gone so wrong. The answer? Federation.
Yes, the federation that WA had cautiously joined had turned out to have an enormous negative impact on the WA economy. The Commonwealth had in place a strong system of protectionism, which was great if you had an economy that didn't rely heavily on exports. Western Australia, however, had an economy that heavily relied on exports. The reason that Western Australia was being granted funds by the federal government had little to do with Western Australia - it was essentially compensation for being hit hard by tariffs and restrictions on free trade. This is no surprise when you keep in mind how WA essentially had to lured into joining the federation with constitutional oddities (eg. section 95) and assorted promises.
So, for many years Western Australia was punished for the nature of its economy, not because of its own failures. But then there's the claim that it's only been since the mining boom began that Western Australia started paying its own way. This, too, is false. Western Australia has been a net donor to the federation since the 1980s, arguably since even earlier.
What this argy-bargy is clearly demonstrating, above all, is that the current distribution of wealth between governments is not right, and widespread reform is necessary. A band-aid solution will not fix the current situation.
Friday 10 April 2015
The future of Top Gear
Top Gear is something of a British institution. I say 'something' of an institution, because it's been around in two forms, and because there are a lot of institutions in the UK. Nevertheless, the degree of its institutionality in this globalised world is confirmed by its popularity overseas. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May have formed the most popular trio of British men since Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
There's only one problem: Jeremy Clarkson has been sacked. I'm sure, if you're reading this, you are very much aware of Clarkson's sacking following a 'fracas' involving him and a producer. It was the latest in a string of offences, some more valid than others, and appears to have been the last straw for the BBC, despite his personal popularity.
I'm not sure his past indiscretions are all that important in their decision, for the simple fact that he (allegedly) physically assaulted a crew member. Such behaviour really isn't acceptable. Would he have been sacked seven years ago? Possibly not, but that seems more a reflection of the BBC at the time than anything. The revelation that Clarkson himself reported the 'fracas' suggests that he himself believed it needed to be reported.
The fact that it happened in the first place may well be a reflection that he was feeling increasingly burdened by the dual behemoths of one of the world's most watched programmes, and one of the world's biggest media organisations. There is reason to believe that the kind of situation Clarkson was involved in before the incident is becoming quite regular at the Beeb, and Clarkson himself had suggested that a time comes when you 'wave goodbye to the big monsters' like him in a column for The Sun.
Can you have Top Gear without Clarkson? Well, you can certainly have a show called 'Top Gear' without him, as it did exist before he came into the picture, but the current version of the show is more or less his baby. Furthermore, it seems incredibly unlikely that both Hammond and May would be willing to go on without him. So, while the BBC may well continue to use the Top Gear name, it will not be the same show. And this may well be a good thing. Bringing in an entirely new team may be just the thing the show needs to go for another twenty seasons.
Meanwhile, the three hosts are still doing their Top Gear Live shows...without calling it Top Gear. It will be instead be given the unwieldy title of 'Clarkson, Hammond and May Live', and will contain not a speck of BBC branding. This may well reflect the future for the three, as they could comfortably go anywhere they wanted to, and do whatever they wanted to. The success of Top Gear has been due in no small part to the team the three of them make.
There's nothing especially, shall we say, 'BBC' about them. Top Gear has been called a 'bastion of heterosexual masculinity', and is gleefully adolescent. They don't want to be politically correct, they don't want to be sensible, they just want to have a bit of fun. This doesn't stop it from being relatively popular amongst females - while more men watch, about 40% of viewers are female. This raises all kinds of questions about the approach of modern media organisations towards gender, which probably deserve and get their own pages of words written about them, but it's worth simply suggesting that there is nothing wrong with these kinds of shows. Any well made form of media will appeal beyond its initial or expected target audience.
Nonetheless, it seems unlikely the BBC, for internal reasons as much as anything, will try the same formula again. It will be interesting to see what they do instead.
There's only one problem: Jeremy Clarkson has been sacked. I'm sure, if you're reading this, you are very much aware of Clarkson's sacking following a 'fracas' involving him and a producer. It was the latest in a string of offences, some more valid than others, and appears to have been the last straw for the BBC, despite his personal popularity.
I'm not sure his past indiscretions are all that important in their decision, for the simple fact that he (allegedly) physically assaulted a crew member. Such behaviour really isn't acceptable. Would he have been sacked seven years ago? Possibly not, but that seems more a reflection of the BBC at the time than anything. The revelation that Clarkson himself reported the 'fracas' suggests that he himself believed it needed to be reported.
The fact that it happened in the first place may well be a reflection that he was feeling increasingly burdened by the dual behemoths of one of the world's most watched programmes, and one of the world's biggest media organisations. There is reason to believe that the kind of situation Clarkson was involved in before the incident is becoming quite regular at the Beeb, and Clarkson himself had suggested that a time comes when you 'wave goodbye to the big monsters' like him in a column for The Sun.
Can you have Top Gear without Clarkson? Well, you can certainly have a show called 'Top Gear' without him, as it did exist before he came into the picture, but the current version of the show is more or less his baby. Furthermore, it seems incredibly unlikely that both Hammond and May would be willing to go on without him. So, while the BBC may well continue to use the Top Gear name, it will not be the same show. And this may well be a good thing. Bringing in an entirely new team may be just the thing the show needs to go for another twenty seasons.
Meanwhile, the three hosts are still doing their Top Gear Live shows...without calling it Top Gear. It will be instead be given the unwieldy title of 'Clarkson, Hammond and May Live', and will contain not a speck of BBC branding. This may well reflect the future for the three, as they could comfortably go anywhere they wanted to, and do whatever they wanted to. The success of Top Gear has been due in no small part to the team the three of them make.
There's nothing especially, shall we say, 'BBC' about them. Top Gear has been called a 'bastion of heterosexual masculinity', and is gleefully adolescent. They don't want to be politically correct, they don't want to be sensible, they just want to have a bit of fun. This doesn't stop it from being relatively popular amongst females - while more men watch, about 40% of viewers are female. This raises all kinds of questions about the approach of modern media organisations towards gender, which probably deserve and get their own pages of words written about them, but it's worth simply suggesting that there is nothing wrong with these kinds of shows. Any well made form of media will appeal beyond its initial or expected target audience.
Nonetheless, it seems unlikely the BBC, for internal reasons as much as anything, will try the same formula again. It will be interesting to see what they do instead.
Thursday 9 April 2015
World Cup review - Group B
To everyone's surprise, the World Cup
has now actually finished. This means we can now finally examine how it
went for each of the competing teams, including those that most have
probably forgotten about already. Also included is a review of our preview.
Group A is here.
India
Good: To call India's performance a surprise would be an understatement. Despite being the reigning champions, they'd spent the whole summer being bashed from pillar to post by Australia and even England, and there was no real reason to believe this would change. Instead they went undefeated until their semi-final against Australia. That their batting was strong was not a surprise, but that their bowling should turn around from incapable to irresistible was quite the shock. The pace attack of Yadav, Shami and Sharma had enough points of difference to be an effective partnership, while spinners Ashwin and Jadeja kept the run rate down and the pressure on during the middle overs.
Bad: It's surprisingly hard to find a weak spot in a team that didn't win the World Cup, but if it was anywhere it was in the middle order. Bear in mind that this was a middle order that wasn't often needed, due to the strength of the top three, but even then they seemed a bit unsure of themselves. Rahane made one score over fifty, Raina was all or nothing, Dhoni did not have the same impact as he did a few years ago and Jadeja did absolutely nothing with the bat. It was perhaps this weakness that saw them unable to chase down the Australian total in the semi-final, guided by a less-than-100% Dhoni, who took too long to get started in the chase proper, and had no-one to help him.
Ugly: India's occasional move towards constant sledging reared its head again occasionally, but far worse was not the Indian team, but the representative of the BCCI, out on the world stage telling everyone how inclusive the tournament was, and how great the numbers were. I am, of course, talking about N Srinivasan, leader of the big three. Few have been such a disservice to cricket in both India and the world.
Accuracy of our preview: Not even close.
Overall: A professional performance from a well-prepared team.
Ireland
Good: Once again, Ireland proved that it deserves to be playing cricket at the highest level regularly, defeating two full member nations by scoring over 300. The strength of their batting was evident in that only one of their top seven did not play in the 2011 World Cup, and their experience shone through against opponents of similar ability (UAE and Zimbabwe). That one new player, Andy Balbirnie, also had a great tournament, building to a crescendo with his 97 against Zimbabwe. His inexperience did show in his innings against India and Pakistan, but he is undoubtedly a great talent for the future. With the ball, Alex Cusack performed admirably, battling against a body that would prefer not to be playing.
Bad: While Ireland's batting was mostly on song, their bowling was not. Comfortably the most expensive bowling line-up in the tournament, Ireland's failure to hold their opposition back placed an enormous amount of pressure on their batting to perform, which cost them dearly against Pakistan, and in the end caused their net run-rate to collapse. Paul Stirling's tournament wasn't the greatest, despite a 92 to start against the West Indies. While he is often hit and miss, the rate of misses leans too high for someone opening the batting. Gary Wilson also struggled with the bat, and it seems difficult to justify his selection in the one day team when another keeper is in the team. While Wilson is probably Ireland's next captain, he isn't the captain right now, so his spot should be up for grabs.
Ugly: The degree to which Ireland's bowling suffered needs to be emphasised here. In particular, the selection of all-rounders instead of bowlers to lead the pace attack was absolutely absurd when there were two young, promising pace bowlers in the squad (Craig Young and Peter Chase). Scotland's Josh Davey had demonstrated his effectiveness, purely from knowing where to put the ball, so it's hard to believe Young especially wouldn't have had a similar tournament. Instead, most of the pace bowling was done by all-rounders, who seemed more comfortable containing than taking wickets. This was not a World Cup in which to be a containing bowler, because it was more or less impossible. Kevin O'Brien indifferent form with the bat was undoubtedly due, at least in part, to his form with the ball, forced into playing a role he is clearly not entirely comfortable with or best suited to doing. A new coach should bring renewed opportunities for the pace duo, but they have been robbed of World Cup experience.
Accuracy of our preview: Not great. The batting was far greater, not lesser, than the bowling.
Overall: A tournament demonstrating their ability that the ICC will do its best to ignore.
Pakistan
Good: The depth of Pakistan's bowling almost defies belief. With no Umar Gul, Junaid Khan, Saeed Ajmal or Mohammad Hafeez, it was expected Pakistan's bowling, combined with their already struggling batting, would see them drop out with barely a whimper. Instead they changed their bowling plans and told their replacements bowlers to go for it. Irfan, Wahab, Sohail and Rahat provided a non-stop pace threat that consistently threatened and often succeeded in limiting their opponents through a mixture of pace and swing. With the bat, Misbah was up to his usual high standard, while Sarfraz Ahmed did well once he was given a chance.
Bad: It's not too surprising that Misbah thought 250 was a defendable total given the batting line-up Pakistan had to work with. It is as though they are playing in a different era to all the other teams. Their batting is slow, inconsistent and lacking in the kind of match-winning performance that a team needs if it expects to win. Nasir Jamshed's tournament was particularly poor, scoring five runs across three innings, setting the tone for the rest of the innings. Pakistan will need to totally rework their approach to limited overs cricket if they want to win. Their fielding, as always, was not up to scratch, which seems to be indictment on the facilities they have domestically.
Ugly: While their batting throughout the tournament was poor, nothing summed up their paucity of runs more than when they dropped to 4/1 against the West Indies. Yes, that is four wickets for one run. Against a team that was comprehensively dismantled by Ireland in their previous match. That they managed to recover to give Australia a fright in the quarter-final is a credit to their bowling, not their batting.
Accuracy of our preview: No. Their bowling depth is far deeper than predicted.
Overall: Incredible bowling depth only able to take a team so far.
South Africa
Good: It was fairly clear before the tournament began that South Africa's fortunes would rest in the hands of a few individuals. In the end, that was exactly what happened. It the performance of four players that kept them going: AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis with the bat; Morne Morkel and Imran Tahir with the ball. De Villiers is in the form of his life, so to see him crunching 482 runs at an average of 96.4 seems almost ordinary. This is someone with an incredible eye, a great technique and an aggressive mindset. This is someone who will face the same ball four times in a row, and hit the ball to the boundary in four different areas of the ground. Watch him while you can. Du Plessis is never going to hear the same kinds of complements, and he seemed to sneak under the radar almost entirely, but his performance consistently came at the right time, especially with his foundation innings in the semi-final. He provided the perfect counter-weight to de Villiers. Morkel needed to perform well, and did, averaging just over two wickets a match. He never had more than three, and he never went wicketless. This speaks to his consistency, and he was able to keep his economy down while the ball went up, near the batsman's head. Tahir's tournament was the total opposite, as you would expect from a leg-spinner. He only had only two wickets less than Morkel, but went between five and zero wickets in a match. Rarely, though, was he overly expensive, with his great variations proving a handful for even the most adept batsmen.
Bad: When four individuals do well in a squad of fifteen, it suggests something about how the others played. While most of the rest of the South African squad had a good game, they didn't have a good tournament, with that one good game being surrounded by average-to-terrible performances. The consistent ineffectiveness of the team, seeming to never totally function as a unit, was ultimately what let them down. South Africa was only slightly more reliant on individuals than Australia, but that slight difference was enough.
Ugly: While many of the South African squad had bad tournaments, Quinton de Kock's was downright ugly. A 78* against Sri Lanka in their quarter-final was surrounded by score of 7, 7, 12, 1, 0, 26 and 14. There was no way South Africa was going to get off to a good start with an opener performing like that. Equally ugly were the rumours surrounding Vernon Philander's inclusion over Kyle Abbott in the semi-final. The two had played about half of the tournament each, with Abbott veering far closer to being a match-winner than Philander had. Yet it was Philander that was picked, and the reason suggested seems to come back to that old issue - 'quota'. Regardless of whether this is actually true, it was an odd selection that may have lost the match.
Accuracy of our preview: Yes. Their greatest weakness was their fifth bowler, although their batting was more 'wow' at AB than the whole team.
Overall: Close, but no cigar - again. A final still eludes a team that should have won a World Cup by now.
United Arab Emirates
Good: Of all the nations at the World Cup, the UAE were the ones least expected to do well. While they didn't win a match, they made a number of teams nervous, mainly thanks to their somewhat unexpected batting prowess. While it was always clear that batting was their strong suit, they managed to put together some very good totals. Leading the charge here was Shaiman Anwar, whose bludgeoning batting brought them so close to victory against Zimbabwe and Ireland. While he didn't play every match, Manjula Guruge was impressive with the ball, swinging the new ball and leaving batsmen in two minds.
Bad: Unfortunately, the UAE lacked depth. Their batting was prone to falling away quickly, and their batting was mostly unthreatening, attempting to contain out of necessity, rather than taking wickets. None of their players managed wickets in double digits, and they did not bowl any of their opponents out. What didn't help the situation was their fielding, which was club cricket standard. Not surprising, given that they are the only fully amateur team at the World Cup, and most are in the UAE for work, who partly employ them to play for local cricket teams.
Ugly: The drubbings they received from some of the full members were pretty ugly, regardless of how expected they were. The match against India at the WACA was the lowlight, as the Emirates were more or less a procession of wickets. Individually, you had to feel for Krishna Karate Chandran, an all-rounder batting at three and providing handy medium pace. The stats say it all: five matches, 38 runs @ 7.6 (with a high score of 34), one wicket @ 177.
Accuracy of our preview: More pessimistic than reality.
Overall: The Emiriatis can be a good team, if they get the chance. At the very least, they did deserve to be at the World Cup.
West Indies
Good: When Jason Holder was made captain late last year, it was to much confusion. While no-one doubted the 23 year old's potential for leadership, the reality was that he was still 23. To charge him with captaining a disparate and dispirited national team at such a young age seemed like creating a lamb for the slaughter. After his first series in charge, these seemed to be true. The team was obliterated 4-1, carted for 400 more than once. After the defeat to Ireland in the first World Cup match, it seemed reaffirmed. But Holder responded by being making statement after statement with ball and bat, taking charge of his team and never looking overwhelmed. Without him, there is no way the Windies would've made the quarter finals. Of the players in the Windies team, the one who seemed to respond to his captain the best was Jerome Taylor, who was occasionally expensive, but always seemed a threat.
Bad: In some ways it is surprising that the Windies made it to the quarters at all, as their players were so inconsistent. Despite being the highest run scorers for their team, Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels did not have good tournaments. The two looked disinterested (at least, more so than normal), and in Gayle's case, also injured. They were far from alone, as many of their batsmen fired only once throughout the tournament. The West Indies relied on having a variety of options with bat and ball, perhaps reflecting a knowledge that they could only rely on each player to fire occasionally. Darren Sammy's performance with the ball was also rather poor, although, again, there did seem to be some kind of injury. Still, one wicket in seven matches is not a good performance, especially when going at six an over.
Ugly: No one really knows why Dwayne Smith is opening the batting for the West Indies in ODIs. His batting average of 18.57 from 105 ODIs gives a fairly good indication of how likely he is to do well with the bat, and he somehow managed to do even worse than that during the tournament. The only reason he should be in the team is as an all-rounder, but he only bowled seven overs, all of which came in the last two games the West Indies played. That he should be in the World Cup squad at all speaks volumes about the lack of depth the West Indies now have.
Accuracy of our preview: Simultaneously true and false. Without the strength of their captain, it would only be true.
Overall: Going backwards at a rate of knots, with talent being overwhelmed by difficulties. A select few who can be bothered are the ones keeping the team together.
Zimbabwe
Good: Brendan Taylor and Sean Williams put on a batting masterclass more than once, forming a remarkably effective middle order partnership to take their team. They managed four 50 run partnerships, including one partnership of 149 which arguably should've won the game against Ireland. Both are similar players, stronger against spin than pace, used in the right place in the batting order and, most crucially, vulnerable to the lure of county cricket. Competent white players trying to make a living in Zimbabwe have been regularly moving north for a decade now, and Taylor is the latest to do this. This was an excellent individual swansong for him, but it is a shame that it had to be a swansong at all. Zimbabwe's bowlers were also excellent in the first ten overs, able to prevent their opponents from getting to a strong start. The best thing, though, was that the players were playing positively, showing the effect a competent coach like Dav Whatmore can have on a team.
Bad: Unfortunately, Zimbabwe's bowlers were unable to continue their work in the remaining forty overs. Only one bowler, Tendai Chatara, managed double figures of wickets, and that at an average of 34. They bowled none of their opponents out, and only two bowlers had a strike-rate below 60. Their batsmen, too, struggled to have an impact other than Taylor and Williams, with only three 50s being made from the rest of the squad.
Ugly: The dearth of bowling made itself most clear in the West Indies match against them. Only two wickets were taken by their bowlers - one off the first ball, and one off the last. In between, the West Indies scored 372 runs, with Chris Gayle making his first ODI double century. Zimbabwe seemed to not know what to do, with their bowlers simply unable to do anything to stop the onslaught.
Accuracy of our preview: Batting stronger than predicted, but the truth of their vigour being renewed was clear.
Overall: Going around in circles. Development seems to be stunted by off-field dramas, and still a long way to go.
Group A is here.
India
Good: To call India's performance a surprise would be an understatement. Despite being the reigning champions, they'd spent the whole summer being bashed from pillar to post by Australia and even England, and there was no real reason to believe this would change. Instead they went undefeated until their semi-final against Australia. That their batting was strong was not a surprise, but that their bowling should turn around from incapable to irresistible was quite the shock. The pace attack of Yadav, Shami and Sharma had enough points of difference to be an effective partnership, while spinners Ashwin and Jadeja kept the run rate down and the pressure on during the middle overs.
Bad: It's surprisingly hard to find a weak spot in a team that didn't win the World Cup, but if it was anywhere it was in the middle order. Bear in mind that this was a middle order that wasn't often needed, due to the strength of the top three, but even then they seemed a bit unsure of themselves. Rahane made one score over fifty, Raina was all or nothing, Dhoni did not have the same impact as he did a few years ago and Jadeja did absolutely nothing with the bat. It was perhaps this weakness that saw them unable to chase down the Australian total in the semi-final, guided by a less-than-100% Dhoni, who took too long to get started in the chase proper, and had no-one to help him.
Ugly: India's occasional move towards constant sledging reared its head again occasionally, but far worse was not the Indian team, but the representative of the BCCI, out on the world stage telling everyone how inclusive the tournament was, and how great the numbers were. I am, of course, talking about N Srinivasan, leader of the big three. Few have been such a disservice to cricket in both India and the world.
Accuracy of our preview: Not even close.
Overall: A professional performance from a well-prepared team.
Ireland
Good: Once again, Ireland proved that it deserves to be playing cricket at the highest level regularly, defeating two full member nations by scoring over 300. The strength of their batting was evident in that only one of their top seven did not play in the 2011 World Cup, and their experience shone through against opponents of similar ability (UAE and Zimbabwe). That one new player, Andy Balbirnie, also had a great tournament, building to a crescendo with his 97 against Zimbabwe. His inexperience did show in his innings against India and Pakistan, but he is undoubtedly a great talent for the future. With the ball, Alex Cusack performed admirably, battling against a body that would prefer not to be playing.
Bad: While Ireland's batting was mostly on song, their bowling was not. Comfortably the most expensive bowling line-up in the tournament, Ireland's failure to hold their opposition back placed an enormous amount of pressure on their batting to perform, which cost them dearly against Pakistan, and in the end caused their net run-rate to collapse. Paul Stirling's tournament wasn't the greatest, despite a 92 to start against the West Indies. While he is often hit and miss, the rate of misses leans too high for someone opening the batting. Gary Wilson also struggled with the bat, and it seems difficult to justify his selection in the one day team when another keeper is in the team. While Wilson is probably Ireland's next captain, he isn't the captain right now, so his spot should be up for grabs.
Ugly: The degree to which Ireland's bowling suffered needs to be emphasised here. In particular, the selection of all-rounders instead of bowlers to lead the pace attack was absolutely absurd when there were two young, promising pace bowlers in the squad (Craig Young and Peter Chase). Scotland's Josh Davey had demonstrated his effectiveness, purely from knowing where to put the ball, so it's hard to believe Young especially wouldn't have had a similar tournament. Instead, most of the pace bowling was done by all-rounders, who seemed more comfortable containing than taking wickets. This was not a World Cup in which to be a containing bowler, because it was more or less impossible. Kevin O'Brien indifferent form with the bat was undoubtedly due, at least in part, to his form with the ball, forced into playing a role he is clearly not entirely comfortable with or best suited to doing. A new coach should bring renewed opportunities for the pace duo, but they have been robbed of World Cup experience.
Accuracy of our preview: Not great. The batting was far greater, not lesser, than the bowling.
Overall: A tournament demonstrating their ability that the ICC will do its best to ignore.
Pakistan
Good: The depth of Pakistan's bowling almost defies belief. With no Umar Gul, Junaid Khan, Saeed Ajmal or Mohammad Hafeez, it was expected Pakistan's bowling, combined with their already struggling batting, would see them drop out with barely a whimper. Instead they changed their bowling plans and told their replacements bowlers to go for it. Irfan, Wahab, Sohail and Rahat provided a non-stop pace threat that consistently threatened and often succeeded in limiting their opponents through a mixture of pace and swing. With the bat, Misbah was up to his usual high standard, while Sarfraz Ahmed did well once he was given a chance.
Bad: It's not too surprising that Misbah thought 250 was a defendable total given the batting line-up Pakistan had to work with. It is as though they are playing in a different era to all the other teams. Their batting is slow, inconsistent and lacking in the kind of match-winning performance that a team needs if it expects to win. Nasir Jamshed's tournament was particularly poor, scoring five runs across three innings, setting the tone for the rest of the innings. Pakistan will need to totally rework their approach to limited overs cricket if they want to win. Their fielding, as always, was not up to scratch, which seems to be indictment on the facilities they have domestically.
Ugly: While their batting throughout the tournament was poor, nothing summed up their paucity of runs more than when they dropped to 4/1 against the West Indies. Yes, that is four wickets for one run. Against a team that was comprehensively dismantled by Ireland in their previous match. That they managed to recover to give Australia a fright in the quarter-final is a credit to their bowling, not their batting.
Accuracy of our preview: No. Their bowling depth is far deeper than predicted.
Overall: Incredible bowling depth only able to take a team so far.
South Africa
Good: It was fairly clear before the tournament began that South Africa's fortunes would rest in the hands of a few individuals. In the end, that was exactly what happened. It the performance of four players that kept them going: AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis with the bat; Morne Morkel and Imran Tahir with the ball. De Villiers is in the form of his life, so to see him crunching 482 runs at an average of 96.4 seems almost ordinary. This is someone with an incredible eye, a great technique and an aggressive mindset. This is someone who will face the same ball four times in a row, and hit the ball to the boundary in four different areas of the ground. Watch him while you can. Du Plessis is never going to hear the same kinds of complements, and he seemed to sneak under the radar almost entirely, but his performance consistently came at the right time, especially with his foundation innings in the semi-final. He provided the perfect counter-weight to de Villiers. Morkel needed to perform well, and did, averaging just over two wickets a match. He never had more than three, and he never went wicketless. This speaks to his consistency, and he was able to keep his economy down while the ball went up, near the batsman's head. Tahir's tournament was the total opposite, as you would expect from a leg-spinner. He only had only two wickets less than Morkel, but went between five and zero wickets in a match. Rarely, though, was he overly expensive, with his great variations proving a handful for even the most adept batsmen.
Bad: When four individuals do well in a squad of fifteen, it suggests something about how the others played. While most of the rest of the South African squad had a good game, they didn't have a good tournament, with that one good game being surrounded by average-to-terrible performances. The consistent ineffectiveness of the team, seeming to never totally function as a unit, was ultimately what let them down. South Africa was only slightly more reliant on individuals than Australia, but that slight difference was enough.
Ugly: While many of the South African squad had bad tournaments, Quinton de Kock's was downright ugly. A 78* against Sri Lanka in their quarter-final was surrounded by score of 7, 7, 12, 1, 0, 26 and 14. There was no way South Africa was going to get off to a good start with an opener performing like that. Equally ugly were the rumours surrounding Vernon Philander's inclusion over Kyle Abbott in the semi-final. The two had played about half of the tournament each, with Abbott veering far closer to being a match-winner than Philander had. Yet it was Philander that was picked, and the reason suggested seems to come back to that old issue - 'quota'. Regardless of whether this is actually true, it was an odd selection that may have lost the match.
Accuracy of our preview: Yes. Their greatest weakness was their fifth bowler, although their batting was more 'wow' at AB than the whole team.
Overall: Close, but no cigar - again. A final still eludes a team that should have won a World Cup by now.
United Arab Emirates
Good: Of all the nations at the World Cup, the UAE were the ones least expected to do well. While they didn't win a match, they made a number of teams nervous, mainly thanks to their somewhat unexpected batting prowess. While it was always clear that batting was their strong suit, they managed to put together some very good totals. Leading the charge here was Shaiman Anwar, whose bludgeoning batting brought them so close to victory against Zimbabwe and Ireland. While he didn't play every match, Manjula Guruge was impressive with the ball, swinging the new ball and leaving batsmen in two minds.
Bad: Unfortunately, the UAE lacked depth. Their batting was prone to falling away quickly, and their batting was mostly unthreatening, attempting to contain out of necessity, rather than taking wickets. None of their players managed wickets in double digits, and they did not bowl any of their opponents out. What didn't help the situation was their fielding, which was club cricket standard. Not surprising, given that they are the only fully amateur team at the World Cup, and most are in the UAE for work, who partly employ them to play for local cricket teams.
Ugly: The drubbings they received from some of the full members were pretty ugly, regardless of how expected they were. The match against India at the WACA was the lowlight, as the Emirates were more or less a procession of wickets. Individually, you had to feel for Krishna Karate Chandran, an all-rounder batting at three and providing handy medium pace. The stats say it all: five matches, 38 runs @ 7.6 (with a high score of 34), one wicket @ 177.
Accuracy of our preview: More pessimistic than reality.
Overall: The Emiriatis can be a good team, if they get the chance. At the very least, they did deserve to be at the World Cup.
West Indies
Good: When Jason Holder was made captain late last year, it was to much confusion. While no-one doubted the 23 year old's potential for leadership, the reality was that he was still 23. To charge him with captaining a disparate and dispirited national team at such a young age seemed like creating a lamb for the slaughter. After his first series in charge, these seemed to be true. The team was obliterated 4-1, carted for 400 more than once. After the defeat to Ireland in the first World Cup match, it seemed reaffirmed. But Holder responded by being making statement after statement with ball and bat, taking charge of his team and never looking overwhelmed. Without him, there is no way the Windies would've made the quarter finals. Of the players in the Windies team, the one who seemed to respond to his captain the best was Jerome Taylor, who was occasionally expensive, but always seemed a threat.
Bad: In some ways it is surprising that the Windies made it to the quarters at all, as their players were so inconsistent. Despite being the highest run scorers for their team, Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels did not have good tournaments. The two looked disinterested (at least, more so than normal), and in Gayle's case, also injured. They were far from alone, as many of their batsmen fired only once throughout the tournament. The West Indies relied on having a variety of options with bat and ball, perhaps reflecting a knowledge that they could only rely on each player to fire occasionally. Darren Sammy's performance with the ball was also rather poor, although, again, there did seem to be some kind of injury. Still, one wicket in seven matches is not a good performance, especially when going at six an over.
Ugly: No one really knows why Dwayne Smith is opening the batting for the West Indies in ODIs. His batting average of 18.57 from 105 ODIs gives a fairly good indication of how likely he is to do well with the bat, and he somehow managed to do even worse than that during the tournament. The only reason he should be in the team is as an all-rounder, but he only bowled seven overs, all of which came in the last two games the West Indies played. That he should be in the World Cup squad at all speaks volumes about the lack of depth the West Indies now have.
Accuracy of our preview: Simultaneously true and false. Without the strength of their captain, it would only be true.
Overall: Going backwards at a rate of knots, with talent being overwhelmed by difficulties. A select few who can be bothered are the ones keeping the team together.
Zimbabwe
Good: Brendan Taylor and Sean Williams put on a batting masterclass more than once, forming a remarkably effective middle order partnership to take their team. They managed four 50 run partnerships, including one partnership of 149 which arguably should've won the game against Ireland. Both are similar players, stronger against spin than pace, used in the right place in the batting order and, most crucially, vulnerable to the lure of county cricket. Competent white players trying to make a living in Zimbabwe have been regularly moving north for a decade now, and Taylor is the latest to do this. This was an excellent individual swansong for him, but it is a shame that it had to be a swansong at all. Zimbabwe's bowlers were also excellent in the first ten overs, able to prevent their opponents from getting to a strong start. The best thing, though, was that the players were playing positively, showing the effect a competent coach like Dav Whatmore can have on a team.
Bad: Unfortunately, Zimbabwe's bowlers were unable to continue their work in the remaining forty overs. Only one bowler, Tendai Chatara, managed double figures of wickets, and that at an average of 34. They bowled none of their opponents out, and only two bowlers had a strike-rate below 60. Their batsmen, too, struggled to have an impact other than Taylor and Williams, with only three 50s being made from the rest of the squad.
Ugly: The dearth of bowling made itself most clear in the West Indies match against them. Only two wickets were taken by their bowlers - one off the first ball, and one off the last. In between, the West Indies scored 372 runs, with Chris Gayle making his first ODI double century. Zimbabwe seemed to not know what to do, with their bowlers simply unable to do anything to stop the onslaught.
Accuracy of our preview: Batting stronger than predicted, but the truth of their vigour being renewed was clear.
Overall: Going around in circles. Development seems to be stunted by off-field dramas, and still a long way to go.
Thursday 2 April 2015
World Cup review - Group A
To everyone's surprise, the World Cup has now actually finished. This means we can now finally examine how it went for each of the competing teams, including those that most have probably forgotten about already. Also included is a review of our preview.
Good: Bangladesh overcame a poor run-up to the tournament to make the knockout stages again. Perhaps now, finally, we can say that they are beginning to fulfil their potential. It's not the first time that has been said, and they've still got a long way to go, but the first generation of academy cricketers are now hitting their prime. What was perhaps most promising was that this campaign was built on a solid batting lineup. Mahmudullah, Mushifiqur, Shakib and Sabbir all had great-to-good tournaments with the bat, something rarely seen from Bangladesh batting line-ups in days gone by. That they managed to chase down a 300+ total with ease suggests that there is also a greater maturity and confidence amongst the team. Soumya Sarkar didn't manage any great heights, but clearly demonstrated batting ability that will keep him in people's minds over the coming years.
Bad: The Deshi's strong middle order was able to make up for upper order brittleness. It's hard to tell whether it's worth moving Mushy and Shakib up the order to prevent an early collapse, because it comes with the risk that they themselves become a part of said collapse. In any case, it's still something that needs to be looked at. Also disappointing was the bowling. While this was hardly a bowlers' tournament, the lack of penetration from the bowling line-up was the difference between them being a genuine threat, and simply making up the numbers. While their spinners may have been more threatening at home, they desperately need this generation of fast bowlers to develop better than they have previously.
Ugly: There weren't really any truly low spots for the team on the field, although the direction the quarter-final went will probably stick in their memories for some time. But the bizarre behaviour of Mustafa Kamal, the ICC president, in questioning the motives of the umpiring during the quarter-final; complaining (probably justifiably) about not being the executive to hand over the World Cup; threatening to expose the ICC's actions; and finally resigning, all of which made for an unprofessional finish to a disappointing tournament.
Accuracy of our preview: Not very. Their batting seemed to have a fairly clear plan, and their bowling relied more on seamers than spinners. They also made it to the knockouts.
Overall: A promising stepping stone that must now be built upon.
England
Good: There was only one player who played well enough to fit here, and that was the maligned Ian Bell. While most believe Bell is a good Test player, the chopping and changing of his position over the years has led him to being placed as just an 'okay' limited overs player. But anyone who scores three fifties in six matches, with an average of 52, has had a decent tournament, and deserves to be applauded for at least providing some kind of stability in an unstable team.
Bad: Captain Eoin Morgan cut a forlorn figure after trudging off for a duck in the must-win match against Bangladesh. His five innings in the tournament went thusly: 0, 17, 46, 27, 0. He also made a duck in the second warm-up match, and the final of the tri-series. Perhaps the Irishman has been given too big a burden to bear, or at least a burden he had not enough time to prepare for. The other 'Mr Reliables' in Anderson and Broad also failed to have any impact on tournament, with Broad's record being particularly terrible. A strike bowler with a strike rate of 71 is not effective in any way.
Ugly: The puzzling switches made at the eleventh hour - after the tri-series but before the World Cup - made a mess of England's chances of doing anything significant. They reeked of a coach and selection panel who doubted themselves, and who doubted their ability to achieve what they had set out to do. The selection of Ballance, the moving of Taylor, the change of roles for Woakes and the non-selection of Tredwell and Bopara were all moves that did not seem right at the time, and seem no better looking back. England, not for the first time at a World Cup, seemed absolutely clueless about how they got into the position they did, and equally clueless about how to get out.
Accuracy of our preview: The bowling was spot on, but the batting was the exact opposite of what it should've been, and the fielding was of a side that was placing itself under pressure.
Overall: The sort of performance that should result in sweeping, positive changes, but probably won't.
New Zealand
Good: It would take almost as long as the World Cup to list all the good things that happened with New Zealand over the past six weeks. Their bowling was superb, their batting blitzed the opposition, their fielding was amazing, and the support the received from their countrymen and neutrals alike was unmatched. They played the game in a way every team should aspire to, and no-one would've begrudged them winning the tournament. But special mention should go to Trent Boult, who transformed from promising but somewhat unfulfilled limited overs bowler into a left arm machine, matching Starc as closely as anyone could hope to. He didn't quite have Starc's pace, but used guile and swing to decieve his opponents.
Bad: It may have been difficult to spot, but two players in the all-round excellent team did not have good tournaments. One was Luke Ronchi, who, when he got the chance to bat, did not get into double digits. A firing Ronchi may well have been the thing to elevate the Kiwis into a great team, but it was not to be. The other player was actually three players - Milne, McClenaghan and Henry. The third seamer simply wasn't able to have the same impact as Boult and Southee, although all three probably had different reasons for that. I suspect Henry would've had a good tournament if he'd been playing from game one, rather than coming in for the last two matches, but he didn't.
Ugly: The final was meant to be the showpiece event, a chance for the two best teams to demonstrate their brilliance. Instead, like most of the World Cup, it turned into an absolute drubbing, beginning with a fourth ball duck to captain Brendan McCullum and going mostly downhill from there. It was a great disappointment, and New Zealand will know that they won't get many chances to achieve a victory so sweet.
Accuracy of our preview: Correct.
Overall: The champions of hearts and minds, but not cold, hard reality.
Scotland
Good: There were little bright lights all over a haze of darkness that seems to hover over all Scottish World Cup efforts. Kyle Coetzer's 156 against Bangladesh would've been a match-winning performance at any other World Cup, and he and Matt Machan in particular demonstrated that Scotland has what it takes. Matthew Cross's skill with the gloves was unmatched and thoroughly enjoyable to watch. The king, though, was Josh Davey, who at one point led the overall wicket tally, and ended up 9th overall. The next best players to play only six matches were James Faulkner, Shapoor Zadran and Tendai Chatara at 20th. Davey isn't in any way fast, bowling in the 120s, but he knows where to put the ball in order to get wickets. His worst performance was 1/38 against Australia, never going wicketless. His performance should be enough to get him back into county cricket.
Bad: There's no looking past the fact that Scotland has still not won a World Cup match. Scotland put themselves in a winning position more than once, yet could not close out a match. There's no doubt that their lack of experience has worked against them, but to let Afghanistan win after having the 7/97 was simply not good enough, no matter how good Samiullah is. Both their batting and their bowling seemed fragile as well, relying on a select few to do well. While it's okay to expect Machan and Davey to perform, if they want to win regularly there needs to be all-round quality performances. Their batting and their bowling always seemed at least one short, and that may very well have been the difference between winning and losing.
Ugly: Majid Haq had hypnotised us with his bowling when we first saw him bowl. The slowness with which he sends the ball down the pitch is something you're never going to see from the Test playing nations, and adds a bit more colour to what was otherwise a dull event. Unfortunately, Haq made a poor decision regarding colour of a different kind, suggesting via Twitter that his dropping for Michael Leask was based on colour. This tweet disappeared quickly, but Haq did as well, sent home before the last match, as Scotland made clear on their team sheet.
Accuracy of our preview: Not too bad at all. Davey was well and truly the surprise packet of the World Cup, and their batsman have a lot to learn.
Overall: A valuable experience, but in danger of being another false start if the big three have their way.
Sri Lanka
Good: Kumar Sangakkara is something special. While the batting in total did quite well, it was only able to do so due to Sanga's mastery of the willow. Four consecutive centuries, a feat not achieved at a World Cup before and may well not be achieved for many years to come, and yet he seemed to do it with ease. As, indeed, all his run scoring seems to be. It was a wonderful finale to his ODI career, and cricket will be poorer for not having him on the field for much longer. Joining him on the good performers list were the openers, Thirimanne and Dilshan. The two are at opposite ends of their careers, and have had the doubts that come with their respective ages, but those doubts disappeared with the weight of runs they scored.
Bad: It was a good thing their top order fired, because their middle order and bowling was as poor as the top order was good. Mathews had an okay tournament, but nothing like he's capable of. Malinga took his time to get going, and was firing in yorkers by the end, but he lacked support. Herath's injury disguised the fact he hadn't done too well to date. Overall, the middle and lower order failed when they were needed, on the rare occasions that the top order had done likewise, while the bowling simply didn't have the kind of impact the team would need to threaten the best. The next generation of bowlers will need to be far more impressive for Sri Lanka to continue as a great limited overs team.
Ugly: You would think the selectors would not even contemplate changing up the top order, given the strength of their performances during the group stages. But as is so often the case at SLC, they decided that they needed to bring in a new opener for their quarter final - someone who had played one match in the tournament, and hadn't done especially well. Poor old Kusal Perera was on a hiding to nothing, and the loss of his wicket for three set the standard for Sri Lanka in that match, losing by nine wickets.
Accuracy of our preview: Not even close, except for the result.
Overall: The last hurrah of the old, with four years now for the new brigade to cement themselves as being the right replacements.
Afghanistan
Good:
The very fact that a sporting team from Afghanistan is playing in a
World Cup is a fantastic achievement. Watching them play, and
watching their supporters revel in being there, was something that
should not be forgotten any time soon. Even greater than that,
though, was their first victory. Collapsing to a dismal 7/97 in a
chase of 211, Samiullah Shenwari put the team on his back and, by
sheer force of will, took them within twenty runs of the target.
Hamid Hassan and Shapoor Zadran managed to overcome batting averages
of five to take them home in the last over. If told that Hamid and
Shapoor would be match winners, most would've expected them to be so
with the ball, not the bat. Throughout the tournament the two bowled
admirably, though perhaps without the reward they deserved.
Bad:
If Afghanistan's bowling was admirable, their batting was anything
but. Any team that gets to 3/3 facing Bangladesh is in a spot of bother. Any team averaging 17.17 for each wicket is not going to win too many games. Any team whose high scorer managed 254 runs, and whose next best less than half that, is going to rely almost entirely on their bowling. Samiullah Shenwari was the lone star in a misfiring batting line-up that probably cost them at least one match. Captain Mohammad Nabi's tournament also didn't help, as the team's fortunes were very much reliant on him, and he managed on 90 runs @ 15, and three wickets @ 87.
Ugly: Afghanistan's match against Australia was a great disappointment. The WACA was meant to be the perfect place for the Afghans to show off their skills with the ball, as the ground's bounce and pace would undoubtedly assist them. Unfortunately a combination of an unhelpful pitch, the new regulations, an opponent looking to make up for losing their last match, and their lack of experience turned the match into an absolute drubbing. The worst thing was that they didn't bowl particularly badly. They were simply bullied into submission.
Accuracy
of our preview: Accurate, although the bowling wasn't quite match-winning.
Overall: A good learning experience for a team who should be in many World Cups to come. The fact that they might not be because of the big three is a travesty.
Australia
Good:
Well, they won the World Cup. It's difficult to get much better than
that. That aside, the bowling of Mitchell Starc was something to behold, understandably putting him atop the ODI rankings. The stats are something else: 22 wickets @ 10, with a strike rate of 17.4 and an economy of 3.4. Anyone who tipped that he would top the wickets tally would not have expected such a dominating performance. Glenn Maxwell's tournament could quite possibly define his career. His batting performances took Australia's totals out of reach, while his spin bowling was just useful enough to allows Australia to get away with not playing a spinner. Steve Smith continued his ridiculously good summer, after a slow start, scoring over 50 in every match from the WACA onwards.
Bad: If we say the modern era of ODI cricket began with the 1992 World Cup, then Australia have won four on the seven World Cups to have been played for in that time. Of those four teams, this seems like the weakest by a considerable margin. The squad members who aren't Maxwell, Smith and Starc had, at best, decent tournaments. The depth of the batting order allowed its fragility to become irrelevant, bar the loss to New Zealand. The potential weakness of only having three full time bowlers at any one time was made up for by the brilliance of Starc. As far as teams go, this is not a great one...but it is one that managed to win a World Cup, and do so convincingly.
Ugly: Has the Australian cricket team always been boorish? While the idea of the Australians playing hard but fair is as old as cricket, the ugliness that came to the fore during the early 2000s was back again in full force during the final. Worst of all, it was targeted at New Zealand, a team that has played in a way that all teams should aspire to. It is a good thing the Kiwis chose not to bite back, and is a sign of maturity that the Australians seem to sadly lack. That this behaviour is supported by many of the Australian public, especially vocal former players, is quite sad. The effect this is having on club cricket, especially in juniors, is deplorable.
Accuracy
of our preview: Australia was about as good as we said they would be. Not great, but good enough.
Overall: Individual brilliance overcame the shortcomings of the squad.
Bangladesh
Good: Bangladesh overcame a poor run-up to the tournament to make the knockout stages again. Perhaps now, finally, we can say that they are beginning to fulfil their potential. It's not the first time that has been said, and they've still got a long way to go, but the first generation of academy cricketers are now hitting their prime. What was perhaps most promising was that this campaign was built on a solid batting lineup. Mahmudullah, Mushifiqur, Shakib and Sabbir all had great-to-good tournaments with the bat, something rarely seen from Bangladesh batting line-ups in days gone by. That they managed to chase down a 300+ total with ease suggests that there is also a greater maturity and confidence amongst the team. Soumya Sarkar didn't manage any great heights, but clearly demonstrated batting ability that will keep him in people's minds over the coming years.
Bad: The Deshi's strong middle order was able to make up for upper order brittleness. It's hard to tell whether it's worth moving Mushy and Shakib up the order to prevent an early collapse, because it comes with the risk that they themselves become a part of said collapse. In any case, it's still something that needs to be looked at. Also disappointing was the bowling. While this was hardly a bowlers' tournament, the lack of penetration from the bowling line-up was the difference between them being a genuine threat, and simply making up the numbers. While their spinners may have been more threatening at home, they desperately need this generation of fast bowlers to develop better than they have previously.
Ugly: There weren't really any truly low spots for the team on the field, although the direction the quarter-final went will probably stick in their memories for some time. But the bizarre behaviour of Mustafa Kamal, the ICC president, in questioning the motives of the umpiring during the quarter-final; complaining (probably justifiably) about not being the executive to hand over the World Cup; threatening to expose the ICC's actions; and finally resigning, all of which made for an unprofessional finish to a disappointing tournament.
Accuracy of our preview: Not very. Their batting seemed to have a fairly clear plan, and their bowling relied more on seamers than spinners. They also made it to the knockouts.
Overall: A promising stepping stone that must now be built upon.
England
Good: There was only one player who played well enough to fit here, and that was the maligned Ian Bell. While most believe Bell is a good Test player, the chopping and changing of his position over the years has led him to being placed as just an 'okay' limited overs player. But anyone who scores three fifties in six matches, with an average of 52, has had a decent tournament, and deserves to be applauded for at least providing some kind of stability in an unstable team.
Bad: Captain Eoin Morgan cut a forlorn figure after trudging off for a duck in the must-win match against Bangladesh. His five innings in the tournament went thusly: 0, 17, 46, 27, 0. He also made a duck in the second warm-up match, and the final of the tri-series. Perhaps the Irishman has been given too big a burden to bear, or at least a burden he had not enough time to prepare for. The other 'Mr Reliables' in Anderson and Broad also failed to have any impact on tournament, with Broad's record being particularly terrible. A strike bowler with a strike rate of 71 is not effective in any way.
Ugly: The puzzling switches made at the eleventh hour - after the tri-series but before the World Cup - made a mess of England's chances of doing anything significant. They reeked of a coach and selection panel who doubted themselves, and who doubted their ability to achieve what they had set out to do. The selection of Ballance, the moving of Taylor, the change of roles for Woakes and the non-selection of Tredwell and Bopara were all moves that did not seem right at the time, and seem no better looking back. England, not for the first time at a World Cup, seemed absolutely clueless about how they got into the position they did, and equally clueless about how to get out.
Accuracy of our preview: The bowling was spot on, but the batting was the exact opposite of what it should've been, and the fielding was of a side that was placing itself under pressure.
Overall: The sort of performance that should result in sweeping, positive changes, but probably won't.
New Zealand
Good: It would take almost as long as the World Cup to list all the good things that happened with New Zealand over the past six weeks. Their bowling was superb, their batting blitzed the opposition, their fielding was amazing, and the support the received from their countrymen and neutrals alike was unmatched. They played the game in a way every team should aspire to, and no-one would've begrudged them winning the tournament. But special mention should go to Trent Boult, who transformed from promising but somewhat unfulfilled limited overs bowler into a left arm machine, matching Starc as closely as anyone could hope to. He didn't quite have Starc's pace, but used guile and swing to decieve his opponents.
Bad: It may have been difficult to spot, but two players in the all-round excellent team did not have good tournaments. One was Luke Ronchi, who, when he got the chance to bat, did not get into double digits. A firing Ronchi may well have been the thing to elevate the Kiwis into a great team, but it was not to be. The other player was actually three players - Milne, McClenaghan and Henry. The third seamer simply wasn't able to have the same impact as Boult and Southee, although all three probably had different reasons for that. I suspect Henry would've had a good tournament if he'd been playing from game one, rather than coming in for the last two matches, but he didn't.
Ugly: The final was meant to be the showpiece event, a chance for the two best teams to demonstrate their brilliance. Instead, like most of the World Cup, it turned into an absolute drubbing, beginning with a fourth ball duck to captain Brendan McCullum and going mostly downhill from there. It was a great disappointment, and New Zealand will know that they won't get many chances to achieve a victory so sweet.
Accuracy of our preview: Correct.
Overall: The champions of hearts and minds, but not cold, hard reality.
Scotland
Good: There were little bright lights all over a haze of darkness that seems to hover over all Scottish World Cup efforts. Kyle Coetzer's 156 against Bangladesh would've been a match-winning performance at any other World Cup, and he and Matt Machan in particular demonstrated that Scotland has what it takes. Matthew Cross's skill with the gloves was unmatched and thoroughly enjoyable to watch. The king, though, was Josh Davey, who at one point led the overall wicket tally, and ended up 9th overall. The next best players to play only six matches were James Faulkner, Shapoor Zadran and Tendai Chatara at 20th. Davey isn't in any way fast, bowling in the 120s, but he knows where to put the ball in order to get wickets. His worst performance was 1/38 against Australia, never going wicketless. His performance should be enough to get him back into county cricket.
Bad: There's no looking past the fact that Scotland has still not won a World Cup match. Scotland put themselves in a winning position more than once, yet could not close out a match. There's no doubt that their lack of experience has worked against them, but to let Afghanistan win after having the 7/97 was simply not good enough, no matter how good Samiullah is. Both their batting and their bowling seemed fragile as well, relying on a select few to do well. While it's okay to expect Machan and Davey to perform, if they want to win regularly there needs to be all-round quality performances. Their batting and their bowling always seemed at least one short, and that may very well have been the difference between winning and losing.
Ugly: Majid Haq had hypnotised us with his bowling when we first saw him bowl. The slowness with which he sends the ball down the pitch is something you're never going to see from the Test playing nations, and adds a bit more colour to what was otherwise a dull event. Unfortunately, Haq made a poor decision regarding colour of a different kind, suggesting via Twitter that his dropping for Michael Leask was based on colour. This tweet disappeared quickly, but Haq did as well, sent home before the last match, as Scotland made clear on their team sheet.
Accuracy of our preview: Not too bad at all. Davey was well and truly the surprise packet of the World Cup, and their batsman have a lot to learn.
Overall: A valuable experience, but in danger of being another false start if the big three have their way.
Sri Lanka
Good: Kumar Sangakkara is something special. While the batting in total did quite well, it was only able to do so due to Sanga's mastery of the willow. Four consecutive centuries, a feat not achieved at a World Cup before and may well not be achieved for many years to come, and yet he seemed to do it with ease. As, indeed, all his run scoring seems to be. It was a wonderful finale to his ODI career, and cricket will be poorer for not having him on the field for much longer. Joining him on the good performers list were the openers, Thirimanne and Dilshan. The two are at opposite ends of their careers, and have had the doubts that come with their respective ages, but those doubts disappeared with the weight of runs they scored.
Bad: It was a good thing their top order fired, because their middle order and bowling was as poor as the top order was good. Mathews had an okay tournament, but nothing like he's capable of. Malinga took his time to get going, and was firing in yorkers by the end, but he lacked support. Herath's injury disguised the fact he hadn't done too well to date. Overall, the middle and lower order failed when they were needed, on the rare occasions that the top order had done likewise, while the bowling simply didn't have the kind of impact the team would need to threaten the best. The next generation of bowlers will need to be far more impressive for Sri Lanka to continue as a great limited overs team.
Ugly: You would think the selectors would not even contemplate changing up the top order, given the strength of their performances during the group stages. But as is so often the case at SLC, they decided that they needed to bring in a new opener for their quarter final - someone who had played one match in the tournament, and hadn't done especially well. Poor old Kusal Perera was on a hiding to nothing, and the loss of his wicket for three set the standard for Sri Lanka in that match, losing by nine wickets.
Accuracy of our preview: Not even close, except for the result.
Overall: The last hurrah of the old, with four years now for the new brigade to cement themselves as being the right replacements.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)