our rivals have qualified

Congrats to Bangladesh!

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:Congrats to Bangladesh!

Yea very well played. They deserved to win and played some fantastic cricket. Taskin Ahmed looks like one for the future. Bowling 88Mph at just 19 is a good sign. Great ton from Mahmadulla

This all helps Zimbabwe's cause. Hopefully Ireland can qualify also. Two minnows making the knockout stages is the best way to poke the ICC in the eye about their ridiculous decision to have a 10-team world cup in 2019.

zimstarr wrote:i was shocked that rubel hossain bowled 146km/hr he bowled low 130s not so long ago . im impressed by their fast bowlers i bet kriterion bd is celebrating when taskin was mentioned on this forum i was like here we go again with these medium pacers from bangladesh that young guy has a big future ahead of him

I've been going by CI's hawkeye feature since the first few games it was spot on with the speeds on the broadcast. And according to that Rubel hit 148 k and Taskin 145.

Rubel certainly has increased his pace in the last year...wonder if its the Streak effect. He was always capable of 145 speeds, but bowled around 135 with the occaisional 140 ball. But now he's averaging 140, with consistent 145-146 deliveries in every spell. Disappointed that Taskin has reach 89.9 mph almost every game but still hasn't cracked 90 mph.

eugene wrote:This all helps Zimbabwe's cause. Hopefully Ireland can qualify also. Two minnows making the knockout stages is the best way to poke the ICC in the eye about their ridiculous decision to have a 10-team world cup in 2019.

I hope the ICC and Associates reach a happy medium. 12 team world cup. Top 8 sides still get automatic berths (if things go the way I hope, WI will have to qualify and BD will be ranked 6-7th). But now 4 teams from the 10 team qualifiers get in, instead of just the top 2. This guarantees at least 2 assoicates, so that IRE and AFG can participate.

You can still have the single league phase, with all teams playing 11 games each (vs 9 in the current format). If you make certain days have triple headers, you can get it in the exact same time as the current plan.

But my guess is, ENG and WI will realize they face a real prospect of falling below #8 (SL too once Dilshan, Sanga, and Mahela, and Herath retire) and will force the ICC to re-format the world cup. As long as its just BD and ZIM getting f***ed, its all good.

BD and Zim don't get to play enough matches or have the chance to build enough points to leap frog England into the top 8 ......

It's all bullshit the rankings system let's say Zim win the 6 ODI matches we have planned this year how high can we jump ??

How can you have a ranking system when the matches are not evenly spread out ?

It's all a load of s**t I don't care about rankings cause I know Zim can never be higher than 9th, but now we're 10th and possibly going to 11th. Think back to 99 Zim cricket was in great shape making the super sixes and knocking off the top nations at this point Ireland had never played an ODI and BD hadn't played a test, now both these nations have outplayed us at the last 3 world cups we can no longer say we are better just cause what we have previously achieved we must now earn the right to say it again by winning. If BD and Ireland can progress to the quarters than so can we, yes we have played well at times and had some memorable performances at this WC but in the end it must be looked as a failure and we need a four year plan to prepare for qualification for the next WC, it will totally embarrassing if we can't qualify for the 2019 edition ......

The only way a 10-team tournament has any credence is for all countries to have equal opportunity to rise up the rankings. So unless the full members can commit to playing associates frequently then we know thy are just full of crap and thinking about themselves.

Bangladesh has actually cracked the top 8 rankings twice in the last 4 years, possibly three times, but twice for sure. The first time was in the 2011 world cup, then we lost to #9 WI and the rankings were swapped. We were ahead by decimal places. Same thing happened in 2013 vs NZ when we beat them 3-0. Then we lost 12 consecutive ODIs. Our problem hasn't been attaining the top 8 ranking, but rather maintaining it. We have always played fewer matches than top 8 sides, even more so the past 5 years. We now play only 10-12 ODIs per year. It is possible for us to overtake WI in the next couple of years because WI can be expected to lose 80% of their games against other top 8 sides. If Bangladesh can win even 40% of theirs, due to weighted averages, we may be able to close the gap with the WI.

For ZIM, its a bit harder as they play at most the same number of ODIs we do (they've played slightly more the past 4 years), but they are quite a ways away from WI currently. But if WI falls to say a mid 70s rating, ZIM can overtake think of overtaking them.

As for if ZIM were to win all 6 ODIs they have scheduled this year, their rating would improve vastly for the following reasons:

1) The rating of their opponents is so high relative to ZIM.

2) The rating is an average divided by the small number of games ZIM plays.

What the ICC will say - which makes mathematical sense - is that the rating is divided by # of matches and thus is fair for all teams regardless of how many games you play. What the ICC doesn't realize is that BD, ZIM, IRE, AFG need to play more matches against the top 8 in order to improve, and if they don't improve their rating can't get better regarldess of whether they play 10 matches or 100 over the next 4 years.