The Champions Trophy comes alive!

Looks like bad news on the political front matches with good news on the cricketing front!! The UK polls were generally a disaster (but Theresa May is showing Margaret Thatcher like qualities by refusing to budge), but the Champions Trophy has picked up steam!
Bangladesh beat NewZeland (surprise, surprise) and England beat Australia (no surprise there); with the result that England and Bangladesh qualified from that group , for the semis. And in India's group - today's India versus SA and tomorrows Pak vs SL, both are important matches!
At the start of the tournament I was thinking that Eng vs Aus and India vs SA would be matches to decide the no. 1 and no.2 teams of each group - nothing else. And that Pak vs SL would be to decide who would finish last! But hey - thanks to the vagaries of the weather and cricket, all these matches have become important (weather played a role in the England-Aus-NZ-Bangladesh group; were it not for the rains, Auz, NZ and Bangladesh all would have been on 2 points each and the run-rate would have decided the second spot).
Today , India seem all set to win (and knock SA out of yet another tournament). Tomorrow, it will be interesting to see who among Pak and SL win. If Angelo Mathews plays, SL will be my favorite to win. In Pak's case it is impossible to predict which version of their team will show up!!
And BTW, SA (the team Pak beat to go on an upward trend) , is generally in a bad shape. Looks like ABD should hand over captaincy to Faf du Plessis (who has always been keen to be a captain and has proven his mettle as a Test captain) and go back to becoming the star player he is. Then, maybe , SA will bounce back!

Pak and SL breathe some life into CT

Boring matches and rains have been the norm this Champions Trophy! So, it was in some ways great to see Pak beat SA ; thought it is debatable whether they would have been able to bat all 50 overs. The rains helped Pak win I guess; though we must say that they bowled excellently and batted sensibly!
SL versus India today too is interesting this far. SL are playing like the team of old - when any and every chase was carefully managed till the 40th over. And then, the team would go berserk and finish off the match! So, SL has a chance of upsetting India. If that happens , then the last 2 league games will be virtual quarter-final games. India versus SA and SL versus Pak - whichever teams win will make it through to the semis. India will stand to benefit even if the rains wash off the game - better run rate! So, here's hoping SL win today's match to keep the group alive....even if the games are boring, the results will atleast leave people waiting with bated breath.

If only the rains could save cricket from itself....

Another day another Champions Trophy match, another damp squib (as I had suggested in my earlier post), another bad advertisement for ODIs! Today's match had some thrills on account of the rain - there was a good chance that Pakistan would run away with a point if it rained hard enough. Finally, the rain was enough to allow Pak to try and attempt a chase of 289 in 41 overs (India ht 319 in 48 overs), but Pak were all out for 164! Tomorrow's match might be slightly better (Aus versus Bangladesh), but that's because Bangladesh will fight really hard. Yet, impossible to see how Australia will lose.
Frankly, given how boring and one-sided these matches are, it wont be a bad idea if all matches get washed out due to rain. Atleast that way, the sheer stupidity of ODIs wont be questioned (why am I following ODIs if I think they are so stupid? Well, it's sheer morbid curiosity - I want to see how bad can it really get). Frankly, if the CT bores fans out of their minds, then the World Cup in 2019 is in serious danger! Time perhaps to have only 2 formats in cricket - Tests and T20s.