So, Champions Trophy (CT) starts tomorrow and will last all of 18 days. Another boring 50 over tournament that's largely catering to television audiences. The warmup games and the Eng-SA ODI series that's running in parallel have had some common themes :
1. It looks like it will be a batsman's paradise - 300 plus scores are easy!
2. Chasing is not so difficult - The old IPL rule; win the toss, bowl first. The batsman dominate the game so much that they will chase down any score.
3. All teams look good, but Australia, England, SA and India look better.
But one interesting thing that might spoil 1 and 2 above, is this - fast bowlers can definitely make a huge dent. Not so much due to sheer pace, but more due to their ability to bowl intelligently. If they can swing the ball then even 130-140 kmph can be dangerous - Bhuvaneshwar and Umesh showed that in the India-Bangla match yesterday. And if you can bowl fast+intelligently, then again you can cause serious damage. Rabada and Parnell did that in the third ODI versus England. It is interesting that thanks to the fast bowlers in the opposition, both Bangladesh and England had half their team back in the hut for less than 25 runs!
So hey, this might be a run fest, but there are very good chances of some lopsided games. If the fast bowlers give the bowling team momentum, then recovery will be tough for the batting team. here's to good bowling then!
1. It looks like it will be a batsman's paradise - 300 plus scores are easy!
2. Chasing is not so difficult - The old IPL rule; win the toss, bowl first. The batsman dominate the game so much that they will chase down any score.
3. All teams look good, but Australia, England, SA and India look better.
But one interesting thing that might spoil 1 and 2 above, is this - fast bowlers can definitely make a huge dent. Not so much due to sheer pace, but more due to their ability to bowl intelligently. If they can swing the ball then even 130-140 kmph can be dangerous - Bhuvaneshwar and Umesh showed that in the India-Bangla match yesterday. And if you can bowl fast+intelligently, then again you can cause serious damage. Rabada and Parnell did that in the third ODI versus England. It is interesting that thanks to the fast bowlers in the opposition, both Bangladesh and England had half their team back in the hut for less than 25 runs!
So hey, this might be a run fest, but there are very good chances of some lopsided games. If the fast bowlers give the bowling team momentum, then recovery will be tough for the batting team. here's to good bowling then!
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