Sky Sports’ Michael Atherton: "England and India’s semi-final doesn’t have a rain day. If there’s rain in that game, whoever finished first in their group goes through.
"The vagaries of the organisation have put pressure on the organising of the tournament, and it’s meant that the two semi-finals are played to slightly different rules and regs.
"Secondly, India knew all along that they were going to be in Guyana for the semi-final and, therefore could plan for it. Their logistics were already in tow for Indian supporters a chance to get to Georgetown… England fans won’t have that chance because it’s so late.
“One team knew that they were going to that semi-final and I don’t think it’s ideal at all.”
Sky Sports’ Nasser Hussain: "You can’t have two semi-finals with two different playing conditions, where one has a rain day and the other one doesn’t.
You can have our place, Nobody here is interested. Football dominates, and probably still will even when we finally have a summer Test Match.
The situation described above re rain days seems pretty wierd; if India qualified for the final on that basis then it would be a bit hollow, even if they do appear to be the best side in the competition.
I was going to mention it earlier as I didn’t want it to sound like sour grapes but I for the life of me can’t work out why Afghanistan is allowed to play. I haven’t heard much about their women’s side.
I was not aware of the ‘no-ball boundary’ concept before. A four hit from a no-ball becomes a 6 in the County Championship apparently, because a no ball is now worth 2. Plus an extra ball.
So 43 off a nine ball over with three ‘sixes’ off no balls, that were actually hit for 4.
They must be using far more coloured pens and pencils than I ever had access to as a scorer (in my very junior years).
But, I think it’s good that no-balls are penalised so heavily, as I’ve never understood the need to operate so close to the line. I remember when Jeff Thomson came over on tour and bowled an 11-ball over (IIRC), which begged the question of how well he was policed in Australia.
It’s not quite that. In the past a 4 hit off a no-ball would have been 4 to the batter and 5 to the total. The Championship is now giving 2 for a no-ball (I have no idea why), so a 4 from a no-ball is 6 to the total and still 4 to the batter.
Kimber started the over on 72 and finished it on 109 (37 runs) while the score went from 238/7 to 281/7 (43 runs).
In old money with 1 for a no-ball it’d have been 40 from the over.
(Cricinfo have ball by ball just giving the score per ball, no commentary, it’s a terrifying knock even looking at that. 243 from 127 balls.)
Scroll down to Over 59 where they have added ball by ball commentary. Scarily for England followers Robinson seemed to have only one plan and couldn’t change it. The first 7 balls were banged in short, he went full in the 8th and finished the over with another short ball. (The first 7 went 6, 4nb, 4, 6, 4, 4nb, 4, 4nb before he changed plans.) it rather reminded me of an England player talking about Brian Lara and saying they’d come up with a plan to get him out in Antigua, they’d kept at it and succeeded, unfortunately he’d scored 375 by that time.
There was a time way back, perhaps it still happens (?), when to get to a ‘result’ in a CC game, teams would ‘feed’ runs to a side, which obviously distorted much-cherished averages – although, it must be said, the bowlers used were the ‘turn your arm over’ brigade.
The article mentions the declaration bowling and says the record for runs per over doesn’t include those. This certainly wasn’t that, Leicestershire were chasing 464 and Kimber was last out with the score on 445, he came close to flogging them to a really unlikely victory.
