Just three or four weeks ago you wouldn’t have been able to sell the idea, but the Super Six stage of the World Cup kicks off today with no South Africa, no Pakistan, but with Kenya still in contention for a shot at one-day cricket’s greatest prize.
No tears need be shed for either South Africa or Pakistan. Both teams played poor cricket through the preliminary round. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the weather and botched arithmetic, South Africa needed to win only one of their three matches against Pool B’s serious contenders, the West Indies, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. They failed on each occasion. That hardly constitutes bad luck. If you’re going to win the World Cup, you have to be able to beat a few good teams somewhere along the way.
Equally, Pakistan were an ill-disciplined rabble. This is not an entirely unfamiliar state of affairs for Pakistan, but this time around there were no flashes of individual brilliance to see them through. Inzamam-ul-Haq scored only 19 runs in six innings. That just about sums it up.
But Kenya are there, starting off the Super Sixes with only Australia above them on the log. Let’s not get too carried away about this. Kenya qualified because a forfeit presented them with four free points and because a washout and a rain-induced tie thwarted the West Indies and South Africa respectively. If Kenya are to pick up another point in this World Cup, they’re going to need a lot more help from the weather.
Even so, Kenya could still sneak into the semi-finals if either of Sri Lanka or New Zealand fail to win two of their three Super Six matches. This is not, of course, quite what the International Cricket Council had in mind when they devised the format for this World Cup. The system will almost certainly be overhauled for the 2007 tournament, but for the time being it has at least provided this World Cup with a number of intriguiging possibilities.
Only Australia are in the position of being able to drop Super Six points and still be confident of a semi-final of a semi-final place. They have the safety net of a final Super Six against Kenya in Durban next Saturday. If Kenya win this one over the full distance, the skies will crack, the seas will boil and civilisation as we know it will come to an abrupt end.
More immediately, both teams are in action today. At SuperSport Park Sri Lanka’s credentials will be tested to the full by Australia. One of the feature of this World Cup has been how shrewdly Sri Lanka have employed their spinners to back up Chaminda Vaas’s wonderful swing bowling, but the suspicion lingers that their batsmen might still be found out by the bouncing ball.
This theory was expected to be put to the test by South Africa at Kingsmead
on Monday, but it seemed to fall apart in only Shaun Pollock’s second over
when he allowed Marvan Atapattu to hit him for three front-foot boundaries.
Even without Jason Gillespie, Australia will not be quite so generous and
Sri Lanka’s World Cup ambitions may well depend on how their batsmen cope
with Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath today.
At Newlands tonight, Kenya have an entirely different problem: how to
contain India’s Sachin Tendulkar, the Little Master who has given every
indication that he wants to make this World Cup his own. Tendulkar has been
in sublime form in a tournament which may have lost Brian Lara but which is
still graced by the world’s best batsman. There has been a smile on
Tendulkar’s face for much of this World Cup, which suggests he is enjoying
himself and the disdain with which he ripped Pakistan apart last Saturday
must have sent anxiety rippling through the world’s leading bowlers. Even
Australia might have sat up and taken notice, but for today, at least, the
problem is Kenya’s. The Africans beat India in Port Elizabeth last season,
but you won’t get a price on this repeating this achievement tonight.
Indeed, from this vantage point India seem to be Australia’s chief rivals
for the World Cup. The left-arm swing pair of Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra
have been a revelation and although they are still a bowler – or rather a
bowling all-rounder short – they are serious contenders, especially taking
into account the fact that they don’t have to worry about Australia until at
least the semi-final stage. On Monday at the Wanderers they face Sri Lanka
in a sort of mini-Asian championship, now that Pakistan and Bangladesh have
gone home.
Atapattu and Aravinda de Silva have run into form for Sri Lanka, even though
Sanath Jayasuriya has gone a little quiet, but again Tendulkar will be the
one to watch.
Before that, though, the two remaining Super Six contenders, Zimbabwe and
New Zealand, will have faced each other in Bloemfontein tomorrow (sat). Like
Kenya, Zimbabwe received four free points and gained two more from their
washout against Pakistan (although it’s a moot point whether Pakistan would
have managed to win in Bulawayo on Tuesday, given that they seem to have
spent Monday punching each other.
New Zealand scrambled through into the Sixes with only four points, and have
a good deal of catching up to do. But after starting the preliminary round
slowly, they have slipped into a game plan which, while largely pragmatic,
still allows captain Stephen Fleming to tweak and twist it here and there.
Expect the Kiwis to beat Zimbabwe in Bloemfontein before taking on Australia
in perhaps the most fascinating clash of this stage at St George’s Park on
Tuesday. If there is one team that won’t spend sleepless nights worrying
about Australia, it is New Zealand whose recent record against Ricky Ponting
‘s side is impressive. Man for man, you’d have to pick Australia to win this
one, but the trans-Tasman rivalry is such that Australia might be a little
more anxious on the day.
On Wednesday Zimbabwe play Kenya in an all-Africa affair in Bloemfontein as
South Africans look on enviously; on Friday India meet New Zealand in what
might be a quarterfinal for New Zealand; and on Saturday the stage wraps up
with Zimbabwe facing Sri Lanka in East London and Australia playing Kenya in
Durban.