Welcome to Day 6. An early start in Nelson for a match featuring two of the Cricket World Cup underdogs.
The Three Big (Cricket World Cup Thus Far) Questions
Is Net Run Rate that important?
New Zealand almost butchered an easy run-chase against Scotland the other day all in the pursuit of a superior Net Run Rate (NRR). As the New Zealand public panic and critics slam their recklessness the New Zealanders didn’t care less. You see, wickets lost is not used in the calculations of NRR. Simply, the runs scored is divided by the overs faced and subtracted from the runs conceded divided by the overs bowled. The Black Caps now have a health NRR of 2.62. That’s important because if teams are on equal points after the round robin series, NRR will separate them. The top four teams play off against each other in a traditional 1 v 4 scenario so it’s understandable NZ want to consider all factors.
Which team is better with their backs against the wall? West Indies or Pakistan?
Write either of them off at your peril. Both Pakistan and the West Indies play better without expectation. They can relax, they can entertain, they can play naturally; aggressively. Yes, both have suffered embarrassing defeats in their first games, but the tournaments a long one, they can atone for this in the latter more important stages. Pakistan were semi-finalists in this tournament on 2011 and took out the Twenty20 World’s in 2009 in similar circumstances. West Indies too have enjoyed big tournament wins as recently as 2012 (World Twenty20).
Is Duckworth-Lewis ever going to be a factor? Is this World Cup being played in Qatar?
Certainly the lack of rain has been a pleasing factor of the first week of action. Messrs Duckworth and Lewis left to work on even more complex algorithms, rather than meddle in international cricket. It probably won’t last forever mind you with Brisbane expecting showers for Michael Clarke’s return to action against Bangladesh on Saturday.
Today’s Match
UAE v Zimbabwe, Saxton Oval (Nelson – mostly sunny), starts 11:00am local time
Zimbabwe – $1.14
UAE – $5.75
Zimbabwe will take great confidence from their performance against South Africa into this one where they have been given the tag of strong favourites. Zimbabwe were excellent in 70-80 overs against South Africa and will be looking to extrapolate that out to a complete performance today. Not that this one’s expected to go 100 overs.
UAE are likely to struggle in their first Cricket World Cup since 1996. They have been set-up in Napier fine tuning their games against club cricketers, but reports are they have struggled to beat Hawke’s Bay’s best club players in a series of one-daters. That’s a worry.
Today’s Bet
Elton Chigumbura – Man of the Match – $11.00
Odds from Centrebet.
Betfair:
Bet on Henrik Stenson to become the BMW PGA Championship Winner.
Paddypower:
Back Australia to take the Ashes home with them.
Betway:
Back Rafael Nadal to become the Mens French Open Winner.
Coral:
Back One For Arthur to win the Grand National.
Bet365:
Back Mexico to win the Confederations Cup.
