 In the Cricket World Cup round-up from the last week, the quarter-final
line-up was decided on Sunday. After India beat West Indies in the
last league game of the tournament, they finished second in the group whereas
South Africa topped the Group B.
West Indies, who had gone into the game after having lost to England, ended
on the fourth position with the same points as Bangladesh but with a better
net run-rate. In fact, West Indies had earlier got a good chance of taking England
out of the tournament but just when it looked like they could beat England with
only 20 odd runs needed for a win and with four wickets remaining, the side
was bowled out.
In the other group games, there were two matches in the end, which were to
decide which team were to face which one. New Zealand were beaten by Sri Lanka
at Mumbai, and that meant that when the Pakistanis beat Australia, the order
in the Group A was Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand.
This meant that South Africa, who finished at the top of the table in the other
group will take on New Zealand in the quarter-finals, followed by India versus
Australia, Pakistan versus West Indies and Sri Lanka v England.
The players who have done well in the tournament so far, include Kumar Sangakkara
from Sri Lanka with the bat, who has 363 runs so far. Jonathon Trott, who has
probably been the most consistent has made 4 half-centuries and has 336 runs,
followed by Andrew Strauss, Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, all the way
to 326 runs. Yuvraj Singh has 284 runs for his century and three half-centuries
in the tournament so far.
Shahid Afridi had had an excellent start to the competition with the ball,
and took 14 wickets in the first three games, before picking up only three more
in the next three games. In terms of consistency, one needs to laud the efforts
of Zaheer Khan, who has 15 wickets from six games but with the best of
only 3/20. The number three spot belongs, rather surprisingly to Robin Peterson
who has 14 wickets shared with Tim Southee with the same number of wickets.
They are followed by Kemar Roach, Umar Gul and the only Associate nation
bowler in the top 15 - Hariwar Baidwan - all with 13 wickets each. To go with
his 284 runs, Yuvraj has also had 9 wickets to his name in a fine all-round
performance.
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