Cricket World Cup Qualifiers thread

loosecannon

The lads are down in South Africa already preparing for the World Cup Qualifiers that start on April the 1st - in terms of cricket outside of the test playing nations, this is the most important tournament you can get.

There are 12 teams down in SA, The top 4 will qualify for the world cup (only 14 at the 2011 World Cup as opposed to 16 in 2007), the top 6 will gain ODI status for the next 4 years & the bottom two will be relegated to the 3rd tier of associate cricket.

Ireland have been placed in the far tougher group imo - We have Scotland, Canada, Namibia, Uganda & Oman. From these six the top 4 will go through to the super 8's where you play off with the 4 teams from the other group to determine the 4 qualifiers for 2011.

With so much to play for for all teams, the tournament should be very very competitive and if you add to this the unbelievable story of Afghanistan who only became a member of the ICC in 2001 (when the taleban were expelled) and have worked their way through to being one step away from the World Cup we have quite an exciting tournament over the next few weeks.

The consequences for Irish Cricket of not qualifying are so massive that they are probably not worth thinking about but with what I believe two of the best outsiders in Uganda & Namibia (almost with home advantage) both in our group the first week will be vital especially considering we play Scotland in our first game.

Our preparations don't seem to have been the best with a narrow defeat to an Eastern Province XI and then a hammering by Zimbabwe 'A' which has led to a hastily organised extra warm up game against Afghanistan today.

You can follow every ball of it all here from April 1st to 19th

http://www.cricketeurope4.net/CWCQ2009/index.shtml
&
http://uk.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2009/OD_TOURNEYS/ICC-WCQ/

Anyone have any predictions for the 4 qualifiers

I'm going to go for Ireland, Scotland, Namibia & Kenya with my dark horses being Afghanistan & Uganda.......
(i'll go for Bermuda & Oman to be relegated too)

Come on you boys in green!


EDIT to include our fixtures

* April 1: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Ireland v Scotland (Benoni)
* April 2: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Ireland v Oman (Stan Friedman)
* April 4: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Ireland v Uganda (Stan Friedman)
* April 6: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Ireland v Canada (Benoni)
* April 8: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Ireland v Namibia (Wanderers Oval)

& further games if we get through initial group

April 11: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Super 8's
April 13: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Super 8's
April 15: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Super 8's
April 17: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Super 8's
April 19: ICC World Cup Qualifier, Finals

It looks like this could be tougher than some people expect.The Scots first up is massive.Win that and we are on the way but lose that and we could be struggling.Namibia have given us problems before.We have the beating comfortably of the others in the group I'd reckon.As usual the whole qualification thing is convoluted.We have just got to qualify.It would be great to win the whole thing out and we probably will do if we can get a bit of momentum and quality match practice from the early games but the only thing that matters is qualifying.Do it the old Italian soccer way of dogging out results and getting the job done in qualifying before bringing our A game to the 2011 World Cup.

simonrooneyzaga

Promising start to the warm up matches with a thriller against Eastern Province. However, they were smashed by Zimbabwe A and, contrary to cricket europes report, were hardly convincing losing 4 wickets chasing 87 against Afghanistan!

HonalD

simonrooneyzaga wrote: »

Promising start to the warm up matches with a thriller against Eastern Province. However, they were smashed by Zimbabwe A and, contrary to cricket europes report, were hardly convincing losing 4 wickets chasing 87 against Afghanistan!

Afghanistan are no chickens - they have been impressive in their qualification games to reach this stage. As pointed out they could be a dark horse.

KevIRL

What time (Irish) does the game start tomorrow?

TheDrog

08:00 GMT

TrueDub

Good start for Ireland! The Jolly Green Giant gets Gavin Hamilton with the first balls he bowls. Currently 11-1 after 2.4

KevIRL

Scotland 14-2 now

KevIRL

KevIRL wrote: »

Scotland 14-2 now

22-3

Rankin with 2 wickets

KevIRL

24-4. Gotta admit its gettin better....

Rex Manning

Is there commentary anywhere for the game? just following it the cricinfo.com site at the minute

KevIRL

Rex Manning wrote: »

Is there commentary anywhere for the game? just following it the cricinfo.com site at the minute

Text commentary

http://www.cricketeurope4.net/LIVE/CHANNELS/2/commentary.shtml

McCullum just gone past 50. Key wicket for Ireland to take

Scot 114-5 (32.2)

Rex Manning

Cheers Kev, looks better than cricinfo!

KevIRL

38.3 Rankin to N McCallum, 3 runs. DROPPED Johnston running back at mid-on never really got underneath it and dropped at second attempt

pity. Scotland 144-5 (40ovs)

McCallum 71no

dereko1969

176-6 now off 44.4 - really needed to get mccullum out but if we keep them to below 200 we should be ok

dereko1969

jeebus 50 off the last 4 overs see scotland post a decent total 232, mccullum ended up with 121*

KevIRL

Ireland 17-0 (2.3)

KevIRL

White out

Ireland 43-1 (7.4)

KevIRL

Great reply from Porterfield to the loss of the wicket. 4 fours in an over.

Ireland 66-1 (10.5)

el_tiddlero

KevIRL wrote: »

White out

Ireland 43-1 (7.4)

you mean Wilson right??

also, check out this over from Porterfield..

Cricinfo:
8.6 Wright to Porterfield, no run
8.5 Wright to Porterfield, FOUR, another drive, this time straight
8.4 Wright to Porterfield, FOUR, another cover drive, that one even better
8.3 Wright to Porterfield, no run
8.2 Wright to Porterfield, FOUR, good shot, cover drive races away to the fence
8.1 Wright to Porterfield, FOUR, lofted cleanly over the wide mid-on

he hit 10 off the first over the innings too.. good to see he's in form.. we'll need him to come through this tournament..

KevIRL

Yep Wilson, my bad.

Ireland gone past the 100 with a 6 from Morgan

102-1 (15ovs)

Porterfield on 61no

el_tiddlero

required rate down to 3 an over, with 9 wickets in hand, this should be stroll from here on..
G'WAN IRELAND!!

dereko1969

Morgan just bowled for 60, great figures though.

E Morgan bowled Watson 60 (54 balls, 3x4, 4x6) SR: 111.11
Partnership of 131 in 112 balls

Niall O'Brien in now and hopefully he and Porty will see it through, Porty on 91

ouch it was a reverse sweep with the ball hitting leg stump, doh!

KevIRL

Morgan out after a fine 60

174-2 (26.2)

el_tiddlero

could be important to finish this quick as net run rate might come into it for qualification to the super 8s..

yeah smashing knock by morgan, four sixes is impressive.. Porterfield will want to see it through unbeaten.. and he'll have his eye on being top-scorer in the match ahead of McCallum too I reckon..

dereko1969

not now he won't out for 101 great captain's innings though.
got the batting powerplay so hopefully niall and andre will see it through (actually surprised andre is batting now, given the end is in sight i'd have thought they'd have spared him and brought kevin o'b on instead)

el_tiddlero

wahey!! good win!

see ye tomorrow for the next one!

d'Oracle

Thats the game.

Good win.
11.5 overs to spare.

dereko1969

woot! great win there, with 74 balls to spare. excellent stuff, sets us up nicely now for the rest of the tournament.

dereko1969

go on Afghanistan! knew I should have put a bet on them to get through, they're looking good against Denmark

TrueDub

An excellent win indeed, making the most of the conditions early on when the wicket was (apparently) a bit on the green side, then limiting the scoring when it flattened out, followed by a stonking batting performance from the skipper especially.

Also helpful was a minor upset in another game in our group, where Uganda beat Namibia.

This was a brilliant result for our lads today.I knew there was lots of talk that they were taking the qualifiers very seriously and had been working hard during the winter.However I expected a tight contest agianst Scotland as thats the way it usually pans out between the two but we won pulling up.

Canada hammered Oman so it should be an easy one tomorrow.We need to stay alert for Uganda on Saturday though.

Well done Afghanistan great to hear a good news story about the nation for a change.

Netherlands beating Kenya too would indicate that really this tournament is Ireland's to lose at this stage if we can maintain today's form.

KevIRL

Game 2 of the cricket qualifying and its Ireland v Oman

Ireland batting first and are currently 40-0 (7overs)

http://www.cricketeurope4.net/LIVE/CHANNELS/2/commentary.shtml

KevIRL

Uh oh. Porterfield and Morgan out in quick succession. Ireland 66-2

KevIRL

2 quick wickets. Wilson gone for 46. N O Brien for 20

Ireland 111-4

el_tiddlero

K O'Brien and White seem to be struggling against the middle overs spin chokehold that Oman are trying to apply.. runs seeming hard to come by..
hopefully they can see it through to the 40th over and then have a cut to up the score.. should be looking for about 260 here.

KevIRL

10 runs off the 33rd over takes Ireland to 146-4

el_tiddlero

KevIRL wrote: »

10 runs off the 33rd over takes Ireland to 146-4

Typical. should've kept my mouth shut.. to be fair, prior to that over they'd struggled to get them away... :rolleyes:

KevIRL

Ireland really taking advantage of final powerplay

223-4(43.3)

KevIRL

White/K O Brien partnership of 174 sees Ireland through to 285-4

O Brien 101*
White 70*

Fantastic stuff.

el_tiddlero

KevIRL wrote: »

Ireland really taking advantage of final powerplay

223-4(43.3)

sure did.. 57 runs off the 5 overs..
we finished on 285-4 for our 50 overs..

that's a run rate of 5.7, I think Oman will find that too hot to handle..

cgf

Update:

Oman are 43-0 after 7.3 overs.
Target is 286 in 50 overs.
Current run rate is 5.73; required rate = 5.72.

KevIRL

Oman well on top

80-0 (13ovs)

C r/r is 6.15
R r/r is 5.57

Need wickets soon

shoutman

What is the Oman team like? Will it be a case of if we get through the first two or three wickets a collapse would not be a huge shocker?

KevIRL

shoutman wrote: »

What is the Oman team like? Will it be a case of if we get through the first two or three wickets a collapse would not be a huge shocker?

No clue except Canada beat them by 103 runs yesterday. Really looking bad for us at the mo

shoutman

A few quick wickets and it could all change, a pity that it isn't available to watch anywhere.

KevIRL

First wicket. West takes it with his second ball

shoutman

First wicket, Nilesh Parmar c Johnston b West 41 (51 balls, 7x4, 0x6) SR: 80.39
Partnership of 98 in 98 balls

Whats going on.We should be beating Oman easily.285 is a reasonable total but our bowling figures are awful.Come on Ireland we can't afford to slip up here.

Just as I say that a second wicket gone in quick succession.Come on Ireland lets take it from here.

shoutman

I think I might be good at this prediction lark, two down in quick succession.

Hopefully this signals a collapse.