New Zealand is the first team to qualify for the Champions Trophy semi-finals thanks to last night's victory over Pakistan. And what a great feeling it is to sit back and reflect on an excellent all-round performance and watch the other sides scrapping out for the chance to play us.
Odds are Australia will be our semi-final opponents, but they will have to beat India first. That game will be yet another of the "must wins" that the tournament has thrown up so far. And the number of these "must wins" must surely be the reflection of the tournament's excellent format. After the first round of games every match has been a do or die experience for at least one of the teams involved. The ICC should be congratulated for not trying to overmilk the sacred cow by overstuffing the round-robin with unnecessary (but money-spinning) matches. I just wish the Indian crowds were a bit larger, such interesting contests deserve a bit more atmosphere.
Thursday, 26 October 2006
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3 comments:
Great game, great performance by the lads. I must admit im no Styris fan but he played well. And i seem to remember a certain Richard Boock recommending they drop Bond. Right. Good call...
Anyways i wont dwell on any negatives. Hopefully we'll meet the Aussies in the semi. India will be tough to beat at home in front of their homecrowd.
Mike - you are certainly a bit more appreciative of the win than the crew at the ICC Champions Trophy website:
http://www.beigebrigade.co.nz/blog/?p=114
Thanks Paul & Mike. I missed that one. I did read the Cricinfo "verdict" article which said pretty much the same thing though. I wanted to have a wee rant about that but unfortunately the blog was down and I forgot about it. Might save the rant until we have won the tournament and the issue pops up again. ;)
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