World Cricket League Division Three

PlanetPakistan wrote:apparently Afghanistan have a lot of talent.

a lot of their player train in Pakistan

I hope Afghanistan pull through and become a decent ODI team.

Like Pakistan, you'd guess that such a side would have to get used to playing away...

OP Tipping wrote:Like Pakistan, you'd guess that such a side would have to get used to playing away...

I think Afghanistan had a brief tour of England a few years back, did surprisingly well from what I recall.

PlanetPakistan wrote:apparently Afghanistan have a lot of talent.

a lot of their player train in Pakistan

given their dominant agricultural product, their batsmen should be able to 'smack' the ball around.

Hopefully the locals will be laudin' 'em, and steer clear of the tall poppy syndrome.

Let's hope their batting order doesn't cave in under searching pressure from the opposition.

horace wrote:

PlanetPakistan wrote:apparently Afghanistan have a lot of talent.

a lot of their player train in Pakistan

given their dominant agricultural product, their batsmen should be able to 'smack' the ball around.

yeah....i have never seen them play just heard a few stories....

their fast bowlers are quite sharp

PlanetPakistan wrote:

horace wrote:

PlanetPakistan wrote:apparently Afghanistan have a lot of talent.

a lot of their player train in Pakistan

given their dominant agricultural product, their batsmen should be able to 'smack' the ball around.

yeah....i have never seen them play just heard a few stories....

their fast bowlers are quite sharp

Let me guess, their quicks send down a few missiles, while the slower bowlers have a few dangerous grenades in their arsenal.

Round 5

A rainy day in BA...

Papua New Guinea easily took care of Hong Kong, bringing up the required in the 13th over with 9 wickets to spare.

Uganda reached 69 for the loss of 4 in 30 overs in a reduced overs match against Argentina when rain stopped play. Probably a relief for Uganda.

Cayman Islands looked destined to pull an upset on Afghanistan when the match was abandoned due to rain. In a match reduced to 35 overs a side, Afghanistan made 85/5. This low total would appear to be largely due to the captain, returned from suspension, sucking up 73 deliveries for his 26 but the word is that batting conditions were difficult. Nonetheless, in the 7 overs that Afghanistan bowled before rain finally killed the match, Caymans got to 35 for the loss of the openers, and would almost certainly have won were it not for the precipitation. Afghanistan did use some delaying tactics, but it probably only made a difference of a couple of overs.

So the Afghanistan versus Caymans and Argentina versus Uganda matches will be replayed tomorrow, and I presume the play-off matches will be abandoned.

The points table at present is

PNG 8
Afghanistan 6
Uganda 6
HK 4
Caymans 2
Argentina 0

In other news, Lucas Paterlini of Argentina has been found guilty of a low level conduct breach due to kicking a boundary marker on his way off the field having been dismissed on Wednesday.

Still no word on whether captain Esteban MacDermott has any Australian relatives.

So to summarise the situation.

If Uganda wins and Afghanistan loses, PNG and Uganda qualify.

If Afghanistan wins tomorrow and Uganda loses, PNG and Afghanistan qualify.

If Afghanistan and Uganda both win tomorrow, then we have a three way tie on points, and the qualifiers will be determined on NRR.

If Afghanistan and Uganda both lose tomorrow, PNG qualifies. 2nd qualifier would be determined on NRR.

Replayed matches:

Afghanistan 230/8 beat Caymans 148... the captain Mangal redeemed himself somewhat with a pacey 70.

Uganda recorded a big win over hosts Argentina.

Bottom line is that Afghanistan, Uganda and PNG all finish with four wins, but PNG dips out on NRR. They must be cranky, if the rain had held off yesterday, they'd almost certainly have qualified.

So, Cayman Islands and Argentina are relegated to Division 4, PNG and HK remain in division 3, and Uganda and Afghanistan join the World Cup Qualification tournament in April.

The groups for the WCQ are:

Group A: Canada, Ireland, Namibia, Oman, Scotland, Uganda

Group B: Afghanistan, Bermuda, Denmark, Kenya, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates

Leading runscorer of the tournament was PNG's Mukasa, 203 runs @50.75 SR84.6.

Uganda's Kamyuka was the leading wickettaker despite only playing four matches: 15 wickets @ 5.86

How many of the WCQ teams get all the way through to the WC itself, OP? I forget.

"How many of the WCQ teams get all the way through to the WC itself, OP? I forget."

Four, this time.


------------------------------
BTW, some selected comments from Hamid Hassan, 21 year old paceman for Afghanistan.
http://blogs.cricinfo.com/btw/

"t is hard to describe how excited I am at Afghanistan reaching the World Cup Qualifiers. When I think that we came so close to being defeated by Cayman Islands on Friday and getting knocked out, I still can’t believe that the rain saved us from defeat!

"Thankfully the performance on Saturday was much better and we finally made some runs in this tournament, before Mohammad Nabi and I shared most of the wickets when we were bowling.

"When the game finished we still didn’t know where we had finished in the table and then somebody came over to tell our manager that we were the Division 3 Champions and we just started jumping around in our changing room and singing!

"We then travelled to Belgrano, which is the main ground in Argentina, where there were still lots of people waiting to see the presentation despite the fact the game at that ground had finished over one hour earlier. We got a really nice round of applause and then we were presented with the trophy. I had lots of television interviews to do before I could join my team mates in the celebrations!

"I am about to fly back to Afghanistan tonight from Buenos Aires Airport, but it is such a long journey we will not get back home until Tuesday. There will be lots of people waiting for us in Kabul and I am very excited about seeing them. When we won Division 4 in Tanzania there were lots of people at the airport so, as we have won Division 3, there will be even more people there, blocking the roads and celebrating by banging drums.

"I really enjoy the celebrations as we have such great fans. The people in Afghanistan pray for us and are waiting for the trophy to come home so we can all celebrate together.

"After the celebrations in Kabul, I will go home to Peshawar for a couple of days and then head to play first-class cricket in Pakistan. We then will have a training camp in early March, which will hopefully help our preparations ahead of the Qualifiers. We had a camp in Lahore before this tournament, where I was coached by some of the greats of the game, and I hope I will be able to learn a lot more about the physical and mental side of the game.

"We are all really excited about the challenge of playing against the best Associate teams. We know that we have to improve on our batting as I think we are capable of doing much better. We have proved in Division 3, 4 and 5 of the World Cricket League that we have a great bowling attack and that is our strength, but we need to start scoring at least 200 runs as it will be harder against the stronger teams. I think our batters have the talent to score at least 250.

"It will be amazing playing against some of the top Associate teams that I have watched play on television at previous World Cups, but we will remember if Ireland can beat Pakistan and Kenya can get to the semi-finals of the 2003 World Cup, then we can also cause some surprises. If I have learnt anything from the game against the Cayman Islands, it is that anything can happen in cricket!

"I am looking forward to playing against people like Steve Tikolo from Kenya and Jeremy Bray from Ireland and we will be really happy to have the chance to play against such good players.

"Finally, I would like to thank everybody who has read my column this week and for all of the messages. All the team used to gather around the computer in the evenings to read all of the comments from fans and all of the messages of encouragement were a real inspiration for us.

"I hope you will continue to support us and bring us luck at the World Cup Qualifier as we are all desperate to play ODI cricket and reach 2011.

And when Afghanistan wins the WCQ and makes the 2011 WC, how long before some nation, sensing another easy vote at the table, demands the Afghans be given full Test membership?

Maybe the ICC will redirect competitions from Pakistan to Afghanistan for security reasons.

And then schedule them to play home matches in winter.

bump: this division will comprise Australia, England, West Indies, and Pakistan in just a few years time ...