One winner and one loser theory

Well in any game and more so in cricket, one team has to win while the other has to lose. I specially cite cricket as an example in this regard for, chances of a tie are as rare compared to games like hockey and soccer. In cricket there is no or hardly any room for time out which is quite evident from the fact that till date no batsman has been out after taking to the crease after 1.5 minute as the rule goes. That aside, yesterday there was a game between Canada and Kenya which though was of little or no importance but there was a 50 over game.

There was 95% of the game that went by with one team taking home the honors and the other team a "best of luck in the next game". But, one thing that is to be seen and appreciated is the fact that the stadium was full despite the teams being just for the sake of it. One advantage of such a game would be that spectators do not come in support of any team unlike when it is the case when the teams playing are India and Pakistan. Cheers are heard all over irrespective of any tongue twister from Kenya scores a boundary or and Indian born Canadian takes a wicket.

Even whether gods seem to favor such games when a match between Sri Lanka and Australia gets washed out due to rain. People who come to stadium to watch such games should either be jobless or have to an avid cricket enthusiast. I totally forgot to mention that it is only for such games that tickets are available with minimum effort and may be at a lesser price compared to tough competitions. If the players battle it out on the field, spectators battle it out outside the stadium. But, this match seems to lack both onfield as well as off the field competition.

Speaking cricket, there was a 4 wicket haul taken by a Canadian bowler when Henry Osinde had figures of 4/26 from his allotted 10 overs. This saw Kenya losing all ten wickets but played their full quota of 50 overs allotted to them. If history is to be considered, then Kenya should have been found playing much more better cricket which two cups back saw them make it to the semis of the world cup after a lot of support from Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Likewise, even Canada have been involved in upsets when they beat Bangladesh in 2003 world cup and with a batsman in John Davidson who scored the fastest 100 of a world cup at that time.

Scotland Pull One Back

For a team that is yet to win a match in a world cup, it is a delight to win even a single game, be it against any opposition. This is regarding the way Scotland beat Canada in the second one day match held at Aberdeen. After losing the first one day match to Canada a couple of days back, it looked as though the Scottish players have taken the game of cricket damn seriously. If one goes back to the past of the Scotland's performance in international cricket, they are one of the team who are yet to win a match in ICC world cup or the Champions Trophy.

Scotland got a chance to make it to the world cup in 1999 and 2007, where they lost 5 games in 1999 followed by 3 in 2007. They should have won the games against Holland in the 2007 world cup at Caribbean and against Bangladesh in 1999 world cup. Of course, Bangladesh were a better bunch of playing XI in 1999 when it comes to playing Scotland. Not only did Scotland win the second one day match against Canada, but in addition to that, they chased down a decent total (as far as the standard of cricket in Scotland goes) of 250 with 5 wickets in hand.

Unlike last time where Canada won the toss and showed some mature thinking when they could read the batsmen friendly nature of the pitch and chose to field, this time Canada once again won the toss, but made a bad call when they went in to bat first thus allowing the Scottish batsmen to cut loose. This shows the lack of consistence not only in winning matches but even in making the right call after winning the toss. Despite the first over wicket in the Scottish innings when Watts was run out without facing a delivery, there were 3 other Scottish batsmen who posted half centuries.

As usual, the Canadian captain Ashish Bagai bought on all eight of his bowlers to bowl. Fun was that only one bowler out of eight was found bowling out his quota of 10 overs. Something strange was that there was an over that contained just five deliveries. The second over bowled by Evans in the first innings contained. And one more thing that is rare with the Scottish players was a hattrick ball in the 42nd over bowled by Baidwan which unfortunately couldn't be a hattrick. When such things happen, it raises a question that even the umpires were new to the game. This can be evident from the fact that one of the umpires viz. Enamul Haque was from Bangladesh and the other was a South African in Jerling. But, wasn't there any man of the match?

Something There In Scotland & Canada As Well

Rarely do one cast their eyes on the cricket matches that involve lesser known nations like Bermuda, Scotland, Canada, Kenya etc to name a few. Of course, teams like Kenya have involved themselves in one day tournaments like, there was a tournament being played in Sharjah that involved Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Zimbabwe & Kenya which was the result of South Africa pulling out of the same owing to terror threat in the aftermath of the U.S invasion over Iraq way back in 2003. Another instance that I can cite is the tri series involving India, Bangladesh and Kenya in 1998.

Last, I remember a quadrangular tournament involving the Proteas, Kenya, Zimbabwe and India in October 1999. If not for these tournaments that are held once in a bluemoon, the other times where these teams are found playing international cricket would always be in mega tournaments like the ICC world cup and the ICC Champions Trophy. However, off late, the ICC looks to be damn serious in globalising the game of cricket by involving as many nations in the world as possible who would one fine day be playing decent cricket. As a result of the same, there are series' involving Canada, Scotland, Bermuda, Holland, Ireland so on to name a few.

There is an advantage in this as well for, one can watch the players from these nations as well notching up a century as it happened in the match between Canada and Scotland where Watts and Hamilton scored centuries against Canada in the first one dayer only to see Scotland lose the match by 6 wickets against Canada-which saw yet another century scored by the 35 year old Sandeep Jyothi when he notched up 117. Sad that Ashish Bagai couldn't do the same when he remained not out on 92 when Canada had won the match by 6 wickets. This is not a task that any of the teams mentioned above could do in case they were playing test playing nations barring Bangladesh.

It was good to see the Canadaian bowlers do each and everything to stop the Scottish batsmen from scoring runs at will which never happened. The Canadian captain bought to bowl all his eight bowlers but, eventually the task was done by the batsmen. The match gave us an idea that not only could these teams put up huge totals but also chase down the same when the opportunity arises. I wonder as to who on earth trained the Canadian captain to go in for a good toss when he elected to bowl, with the fact that the pitch was favoring the batsmen and chasing down a decent total on this track would not be a tough task! Oh! yeah..it was a Canadian batsman who held the record for the fastest WC 100 for 4 years.

But, at the end of the match, who was the man of the match?