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.