Bangladesh put West Indies out of Twenty20 World Cup

Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful recorded the fastest 5o in the history of Twenty20 Cricket to send West Indies tumbling out of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup. Only a little earlier Ashraful must have been a disheartened man as he gave away 24 runs off the 19th over of the Windies innings - West Indies had put up a most lackadaisical batting display and it was only a late flurry of runs that allowed them to reach a respectable score.

Sarwan may have been thinking that 164 should be enough for the West Indies to stop Bangladesh and as they lost early wickets things looked bright and hopeful for him. At 28/2 Ashraful walked in to bat and by the time he walked out, after having played just 27 balls, the match was as good as over for West Indies. It was a most delightful innings studded with 2 of the cutest 6's ever hit on a cricket field. Dougie Marillier would have definitely been proud of Ashraful today!!

Ian Chappell had conjectured yesterday about the possibility of Bangladesh upsetting one of the two teams in its pool and was proved right in less than a day. Two big upsets in two days and the Twenty20 World Cup is generating some serious excitement and crowd interest already - unlike the other World Cup which happened earlier this year. More interestingly a bigger upset may be on the cards - if England beat Australia, which i would think is at least a 50:50 possibility, that will send the favourites Aussies packing back home. Now that will be some good fun!!!!

Over to Twenty/20

Have you heard of a $ 24.5 million prize money cricket carnival which could be happening next year, again in the West Indies? Just to give you an indication of the magnitude of that amount, the winner in this current World Cup will go home with just 3 million dollars. So, thats more than eight times!!

Antigua based American billionaire, Allen Stanford plans to stage an International Twenty/20 Cup next year - and if the past is any indication, it will be anything but similar to the current insipid affair going on in the West Indies. And, unlike Subhash Chandra in India, who is making similar noises, the Texan Billionaire is not completely new to the arena. In fact, he is well entrenched and successfully so, and Stanford has also shown that he has the financial muscle to pull it off.

Only last year, Stanford ploughed in 34 million dollars into a very successful Twenty/20 tournament involving 19 Caribbean nations. The series introduced black bats, orange balls and most importantly it pulled thousands of fans into the stadiums - as the entrance was free.

With the first Twenty/20 World Cup happening this year in South Africa, reluctant entrants to this concept like India also introducing a national Twenty/20 championship and Chandra & Stanford throwing their cash-rich hats into the ring, Cricket might be standing at the threshold of another revolution. The empty stadiums in West Indies, even for key World Cup matches and the overall drop in enthusiasm amongst fans in the middle of cricket's biggest show might just be the catalyst Twenty/20 was looking for.

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Texan Billionaire Allen Stanford doesn't seem to have the best of relationships with Antigua Prime Minister Baldwin Specner, who has thinks Stanford is "haughty, arrogant and obnoxiously behaved". In the past, there has also been some controversy over how Mr. Stanford came to acquire a citizenship of Antigua & Barbuda. However it's not all that bad. The billionaire head of Houstan based Stanford Financial Group was last year appointed Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of the Nation , and he is the first American to be Knighted by Antigua 7 Barbuda. He has a dual citizenship, being a citizen of Texas, United States as well.

A letter to Clive Lloyd

Dear Mr Lloyd,

I urge you to take your leave of West Indies cricket. I do so, not because I have any reservation about your immense ability...read more

Can Ireland bowl out the Windies for 25 again?

On the 23rd of March, when the Ireland cricket team steps onto the field in their final group match of the 2007 World Cup agains the West Indies, they will have at least two matches to draw inspiration from. One of the two is the obvious one - the St. Patrick's day magic when they took on the might of Pakistan and came out trumps. For the other one, we will have to go back into history, some 28 years back.

The setting was Sion Mills, near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, date 2nd July, 1969. ( no connnection to Bryan Adam's Summer of 1969, though this date has a strong connect with Jimmy Hendrix) The West Indies cricket team had just finished a not too memorable tour of England losing the series 0-2. The great West Indian all-rounder Gary Sobers was a part of this team though he didn't join the rest of his team on their short tour to Ireland post the series in England as he was injured. Yet, the Windies team included quite a few big names and were led by none other than Clive Lloyd.

What happened on that fateful Wednesday is still very fondly remembered by Irish cricket fans and why not. The Irish team bowled out the entire West Indies cricket team for a mere 25 !!! Dougie Goodwin and Alec O'Riordan did the most damage taking 5 and 4 wickets respectively. Four West Indian batsmen got out for ducks and no one managed to get into double digits. It's not even that the wicket was a demon or something as the Ireland team scored 125/8 in their reply - actually declaring their innings at that score.

Four days from now, when the Ireland cricket team meets in their dressing room in Jamaica for the pre-match talk, I'm sure someone will talk about that wonderul Wednesday in the summer of 1969 - the greatest day in Irish cricket history. A little inspiration - and then we all know that history has a way of repeating itself. Sláinte!

image source: cricketeurope.net

and thank you Satyabrat for the story

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after-thought:

Come to think of it, that's 107 runs less than what Pakistan made last Saturday - while Inzy retired from ODI cricket subsequent to Saturday's disaster, Clive Lloyd went on to captain the West Indies to 2 World Cup victories.