Associate Nations World Cup Dream Team

Associate Nations World Cup Dream Team

There has been a lot of talk about whether the associate nations should be able to compete at the World Cup. This subject matter I will be discussing in more detail further but for now I thought it would be fun to create an Associate Nations World Cup 2011 dream team. The only rule is that at least 1 player must be selected from Canada, Netherlands, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Zimbabwe are included in my associate nations team as they don’t play Test cricket any more and also they are below Ireland in the one day international rankings.

The Team:

William Porterfield               (Capt)                  Ireland

Brendan Taylor                                               Zimbabwe

Ed Joyce                                                         Ireland

Ryan Ten Doeschate                                       Netherlands

Ashish Bagai                      (WK)                     Canada                            

Collins Obuya                                                 Kenya

Kevin O’Brien                                                  Ireland

Harvir Baidwan                                               Canada

Trent Johnston                                                Ireland

George Dockrell                                              Ireland

Ray Price                                                        Zimbabwe

The hardest part of creating this team is most certainly deciding upon the medium pacers in the team. Harvir Baidwan has picked up 13 wickets in 6 games which is a very good return even though one of these performances was 3 for 84 in 9.1 overs. His opening bowler partner will be Trent Johnston who again is a military medium bowler but except in his spell against South Africa produced some very solid bowling performances in this World Cup. There was very little competition in the fast bowling stakes, Boyd Ranking had a very average World Cup and there was very little competition in this area of the team. Balaji Rao, Prosper Utseya and Pieter Seelaar were all considered in the spinning category but finally went for Ray Price and George Dockrell as they were both able to keep a relatively tight economy rate and in the case of Dockrell proved that he has a very bright future ahead of him. The batting line up is a strong one and Jimmy Hansra can count himself unfortunate not to get into the team as can Tanmay Mishra of Kenya who has scored two half centuries and looked very good against Australia and Gary Wilson of Ireland who after his failure against England performed consistently in the next 3 games. Overall the batting line up in particular is strong and would make up a very strong batting line up and one that would create some headaches for the stronger nations.

Live To Fight Another Day

Well being an English sports supporter is most certainly not the easiest of hobbies and during this Cricket World Cup it has been even more challenging than normal and if I’m being honest I didn’t think it could get any worse than the last 3 cricket world cups which have been full of misery and offered limited moments of joy and pride to be an English cricket supporter. It has now got to the stage of being an English cricket supporter that I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen. I realise and am willing to accept that it has been hard to predict England at the best of times but at the moment it isn’t only Pakistan who can be described as unpredictable or either an enigma.

Our performances in this World Cup to have lost to Ireland and Bangladesh and then to have beaten South Africa and tie with India is a performance that I doubt even the Pakistan team would be capable of producing. To then think we almost lost to a Holland team that every other team in the group has made to look fairly ordinary shows that we aren’t exactly producing performances that will frighten the rest of the competition. Ultimately unless England suffer an incredible amount of misfortune and West Indies and Bangladesh win both of their last matches then they will have scraped through to the quarter finals.

The way things have happened for England in this World Cup I suppose it wouldn’t be totally unexpected if the improbable did actually take place and both Bangladesh and the West Indies upset the odds in their last games. I’m going to presume that this won’t happen, very brave and quite possibly very stupid but there we go I’m trying to remain optimistic. Realistically where can England get to, as soon as the group matches finishes it becomes knock out cricket and if England are going to end up winning the World Cup then they would have needed to have won 4 games in a row. They haven’t managed to win 2 games in a row since the World Cup begun so this would seem to be a very big ask. The last time they managed consecutive victories was the two warm up wins against Canada and Pakistan and then the first hard thought victory against Holland in their first World Cup match. That’s 3 victories in a row, so only one more would be needed.

Admittedly slightly more challenging opposition will need to be faced than Holland and Canada. The victory over Canada was only by 16 runs so comprehensive victories is not something that England have been achieving but then again all that is needed is a win and the fact that every game England has played has been a closely thought contest does mean that England have recent experience of dealing with pressure situations which some of the countries in the quarter finals will not have had. A game against Pakistan will be impossible to predict so I won’t even waste my time but out of the four a tie against Pakistan or New Zealand will possibly be the best bet for further progress for the English team. Now where as Pakistan are unpredictable New Zealand are equally underestimated and before the World Cup hadn’t really been setting the world alight with their one day performances especially in the sub continent where they had lost their last 9 one day internationals but they are consistent Semi finalists at the World Cup but you would still predict a victory would be much more likely against these two countries than against either a Australia side who have seemed to have recovered well from the recent Ashes defeat and two pre tournament warm up defeats or a Sri Lanka side that will load up with a stock pile of world class spinners who will be up against a set of batsman that haven’t exactly excelled against spin in the World Cup so far. You would want to avoid Australia at all costs just because it’s Australia and it appears they just don’t lose at World Cups, that record will have to come to an end and it would be an absolute dream for every English supporter if it was England that broke the undefeated record and even more satisfying if it prevented Australia from winning their fourth World Cup in a row.

Overall Sri Lanka will want to be avoided in the quarter finals, we all remember what happened the last time that England played Sri Lanka in the quarter final of a World Cup in the sub continent, England got a battering from Sanath Jayasuria. That was 15 years ago but Sri Lanka still have a strong batting unit and a bowling attack that will fancy its chances against a batting line up that is hardly what you would call consistent. England will say that they don’t mind who they get in the Quarter Final and in a way there probably correct because at this stage you can’t say there’s one absolute favourite for this tournament and any of the 8 quarter finalists will believe they can win the tournament and if England do make the quarter final stage they will have just as much chance as any other team.

They most certainly won’t be scared from the countries joining them from Group B, if West Indies join India and South Africa then England would have completed 2 victories and a tie against fellow group B quarter finalists. The way England have performed at this World Cup the harder the challenge expected the better the team has performed so maybe all England supporters should just be grateful that in the Quarter finals England won’t have to play against an associate nation.

Blast from the Past: Gerhardus Liebenberg

Now this may seem a strange subject to write your first blog on, Liebenberg was hardly your most prolific run scorer or that’s what I thought anyway. In my mind Liebenberg was rubbish, now without meaning to get a court summons by Mr Liebenberg’s lawyer that is what I remember of his career. My memories of his are of the 1998 test series between England and South Africa where he played 4 of the 5 tests. I was 13 when this series took place and even at this time I was a fully blown cricketing geek. This series took place 13 years ago and in my memory Liebenberg scored no runs and was a walking wicket.

When I decided I was going to write this I thought it necessary just to check and make sure my memory was correct and that my mind wasn’t playing trick with me and in fact Liebenberg had a glorious summer with the bat. My mind was most certainly not playing tricks with me, in 6 innings he scored 59 runs at an average of 9.83, hardly awe inspiring but too be honest I was surprised to see he scored this many, in my mind he was out for virtually nothing every time he batted. In fact my over riding memory of the 1998 series against South Africa isn’t Robert Croft saving the test match At Old Trafford on the last day with Angus Fraser having to defend the final over of the match, nor is it the great battle between Alan Donald and Michael Atherton on the 4^th day of the 4^th Test match at Trent Bridge, this passage of play is generally acknowledged as being one of the most intense and greatest in Test match history. It isn’t even the fact that England eventually won the test series, their first test series win against a major test playing nation in a 5 test match series since 1986/7. Don’t get me wrong, I have clear vivid memories of all of these events but still the long abiding memory I always have is of one man’s struggles and that is Gerhardus Liebenberg.

When ever I talk about this series to my friends or if the conversation arises of the worse test match player’s Liebenberg name always gets mentioned. That may be a little harsh, I’m sure there are players with worse records but I haven’t come across a series before or since 1998 where I have remembered a player’s poor performance as much as his in the summer of 1998. This is obviously the case in particular with one of my best mates from university when we were passing some time and didn’t fancy for once going to the pub we were watching a video of the 1998 English cricket season and during the part where they showed the battle between Atherton and Donald my mate turned to me and said ‘Do you remember Liebenberg? He was useless’. I think its unfortunate his name was Gerhardus Liebenberg, it’s a slightly unusual name it’s a kind of name that you won’t forget, well it’s one that I never have and obviously nor has my university friend.

It’s only when you look at his entire career statistics that in fact he was a pretty decent player, he scored almost 10,000 first class runs at an average just below 35, your not a bad player if you accomplish that feat. He didn’t succeed at test match level, but he’s not the first, there have been many since who haven’t and will be many more. He never played another test match after the Headingley Test against England and only played in one Test match before which was against Sri Lanka where he scored a first ball duck and 45.

Looking back at this series it is strange what you remember but I will never forget the performances of Liebenberg and how he made batting and Test match cricket look very difficult, if you ever need an example to prove that Test Match cricket isn’t easy then Gerhardus Liebenberg is a leading example.