10-Team Wc A Step Back: Sachin
Sydney: Calling the ICC’s decision to reduce the number of teams in the 2019 World Cup “a backward step”, cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar said such a move is unfair to the Associate nations. While the ICC wants to curtail the number of teams participating from 14 to 10, Tendulkar, an ambassador for the World Cup, told an audience at an exclusive dinner here that the governing body should instead be exploring ways to expand the next tournament to as many as 25 teams. The batting great felt Test nations should regularly play their ‘A’ sides against Associates to provide a “fair platform” for smaller cricketing countries. “The lesser teams have, in each and every World Cup, they always surprise top teams. And they can do it on a consistent basis only if they’re given a fair platform to express their talent.” Since the 2011 World Cup, Ireland have played only 11 ODIs against Full Member nations and their captain William Porterfield has been joined by his Scotland counterpart - Preston Mommsen - as well as a host of players and officials from both Associate and Full Member sides, in calling for a “level playing field”.
De Villiers Backs Steyn
Canberra: South Africa captain AB de Villiers backed Dale Steyn to be a World Cup match-winner despite the strike bowler struggling to hit top form at the tournament. After an indifferent start to the World Cup, Steyn marked his 100th one-day international with 2-39 in the 201-run mauling of Ireland at the Manuka Oval on Tuesday. However, Steyn still has relatively modest figures of 5-182 from the four games, having been dominated by India’s batsmen at the MCG, going for 1-55 in his team’s 130-run defeat. By contrast, fellow fast bowler Morne Morkel has 9-174 from four games while the unheralded Kyle Abbott boasts 6-58 in two matches since he came in to replace the injured Vernon Philander. “I’ve got no worries about Dale at all,” insisted de Villiers. “He’s going to win us a couple of crucial games in this tournament. He runs in with a lot of energy, intensity. He bowled with pace again against an Ireland team that it’s very easy to sort of sit back and go ‘I don’t really have to give it all my all here, we just have to relax; we’ve got 400 on the board’. He ran everything 140 (kph) plus. I believe he’s still in great form, and I know he’s going to win us a couple of games, it’s just a matter of time. “No one is guaranteed a spot, though, and we’ll have to get the balance right for the next game. We’ll assess whatever conditions and whatever team we play against and pick the best possible 11 in order for us to win games of cricket.”
‘Indian Team like B’wood Stars’
Bengaluru: Renowned British author and a former MP Jeffrey Archer on Wednesday said the current Indian cricket team puzzles him and compared the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side with Bollywood superstars, who according to him are famous for their inconsistencies in giving hit films. “Frankly speaking, I am puzzled by by the current Indian team. I think (Virat) Kohli is among the best batsman I have ever seen in my life, but I think that they are becoming too much like Bollywood superstars (who are inconsistent in giving hit films). I mean for the last six months they have been playing rubbish. They come to the World Championship and they start playing properly,” he said in an interaction with the audience on the occasion of the launch of his book — ‘Mightier Than the Sword’ — here. Archer, meanwhile, took a dig at T20 cricket, calling it a rubbish format. “I think 20-20 is rubbish. I think VVS laxman and Rahul Dravid, batting all day against the Australians and beating them on the following day — that is cricket, not this 20-20 rubbish,” he said. Archer said India’s inconsistency is disappointing, but feels the team has the potential to deliver. “So, they are a kind of disappointing. But they can deliver even though they are not consistent and that is the problem,” he said.