My Sporting Weekend 1-4th April 2011:
Warm-Up's:
Super League (Rugby league):
Leeds Rhinos V Wigan Warriors, the game had a scrappy opening with both teams conceding penalty's, with Leeds giving away the majority and Wigan having most of the possession. Joel Tomkins then got the first try of the game, for Wigan, on 10 minutes, after a good break from Thomas Leuluai. Leeds then came into the game and Jamie Jones-Buchanan got over for their first try, after some fast passing caused their to be a wide gap in Wigan's defensive line. And less than 2 minutes later, after a chip through from Ryan Hall, Danny Buderus had some good footwork before going over for Leeds second try. From that point Leeds had virtually all the possession until halftime and Wigan only went up to Leeds's goal line once, before knocking on. After dominating the first 15 minutes Wigan were lucky to be only trailing by 8 points at half time after Leeds had 2 chances wiped off by the video ref, as well as being pulled back at least 2 other times for forward passes in good positions.
The second half started with Kevin Sinfield slotting over 2 penalty, both in front of the sticks, the second one after Jeff Lima was sin-binned for a tackle below the knee on Chris Clarkson. After a mistake under the high ball Sam Tomkins gave away a scrum on his 10 metre line and Brent Webb went over after Leeds moved the ball out left. Liam Farrell had a good break to make metres, and this was followed by S Tomkins chipping through Leeds's defensive line before re-gathering and going over on 65 minutes. On 73 minutes Darrell Goulding went over low on the left wing after a high pass from Sean O'Loughlin to bring Wigan within 8 points of Leeds, and with 3 minutes to go Prescot squeezed over the line and Sam Tomkins converted to bring them within 2 points. After a good break from Sam Tomkins Wigan went up the pitch and won a penalty just short of Leeds's goal line and they then completed the comeback after Sam Tomkins scored with the last kick of the game to earn a draw.
Wigan did play well for the first 15 minutes, pinning Leeds on their goal-line and created some chances, but when Leeds came into the game they seemed to run out of ideas and didn't know what to do. Leeds played some great rugby in spells but they couldn't kill off Wigan and as they tired towards the end of the match they let them back into the game.
Spanish Grand Prix (Moto GP):
This was the seasons first (of 4!) visits to Spain, and more specifically the Circuito de Jerez. The rain was falling as the race started and Casey Stoner had a good start going into the first corner in the lead. After qualifying in 12th Ducati's Valentino Rossi also had a good start to the race getting up to 4th within 4 laps after some good overtaking maneuvers and after a few more laps he had caught up with the leading pack. On lap 7 Rossi went down the inside of Stoner, during the first corner, and lost the front end, taking both riders down, this left Stoner out of the race and Rossi at the back of the field. Then on lap 11 Marco Simoncelli, who was leading by 3 seconds, came off his bike, putting himself out of the race. This left Jorge Lorenzo in the lead, but Dani Pedrosa, who had had a bad start to the race dropping as low as 8th catching him. With 7 laps to go Cal Crutchlow, who was in 5th, came off also in the first corner and with 4 laps to go Pedrosa made a mistake that let Ben Spies go past him. But 1 lap later he came off putting Pedrosa back in 2nd, 9 seconds behind leader Jorge Lorenzo. With 2 laps to go 3rd placed Colin Edwards's bike had mechanical problems putting him out of the race and Nicky Hayden took the final place on the podium. After coming off Rossi did well to fight back through the field and eventually finished in 5th. Further back in the field their was a good battle, that involved a pack of up to 6 riders at times, led at times by Randy de Puniet and Karel Abraham, but both came off in separate incidents and as the pack broke up Hiroshi Aoyama took the lead and with all the riders coming off ahead of him he eventually finished in 4th. This was a very exciting race with a lot of riders coming off their bikes due to the wet track and later on tyres wearing out, and as well as this their was some good overtaking. But their seems to be such a wide difference between the top manufacture teams and the other teams and satellite teams as shown with Rossi going through the pack twice with ease.
Co-operative Championship (Rugby League):
Sheffield Eagles V Halifax RLFC, Halifax opened the scoring on 7 minutes after Joe Chandler collected a loose ball a few metres out and went over, their was a potential knock-on that caused the loose ball but the ref played on. Menzie Yere then got the Eagles first try, 5 minutes later, after breaking through a couple of tackle and going over down the left wing. A well worked move down the left-hand side led to Bradford dual-registration winger Vinny Finigan scoring the Eagles 2nd try for them to take the lead on 17 minutes. After forcing their second drop-out of the game the Eagles put pressure on Halifax before Alex Rowe went over on 23 minutes and soon after Halifax made a handling error on the Eagles goal-line and Kyle Wood made a good break getting just over half-way before being tackled, they then moved the ball out right and after some good footballing skills Tim Bergin went over on 28 minutes.
Halifax had a awful first half giving away easy penalty's as well as making simple handling errors, which Sheffield punished them for. The rain also didn't help their cause, but Sheffield used it to their advantage with Simon Brown kicking into the corners, looking to force errors.
The second half started with momentum shifting towards Halifax and after winning back-to-back penalty's Chandler went over for his second try of the game, on 45 minutes, but within 10 minutes the Eagles had scored two more try's, first Andrew Henderson went over from dummy-half and then after a fantastic line break from Alex Rowe Kyle Wood went over to virtually seal the game for Sheffield. Halifax did have a bit of a fight back scoring 2 more try's with Paul White scoring down the left side on 60 minutes and Ex-Eagles player Rob Worrincy scoring on the left wing on 67 minutes. They also had a try disallowed by the touch judge after Graham Holroyd knocked on 20 metres from his own goal line and the ref played on. On 73 minutes Sheffield's Brown scored a drop-goal to take the bonus point away from Halifax, and then Sheffield finished the game with Ryan Hepworth getting a try, and a final score of 41-22.
Sheffield played well with the forwards earning some good metres down the center of the pitch, but they switched off a bit in the second half letting Halifax back into the game, but they were not consistent enough to take control and make a comeback. Halifax had 2 former Eagles players, Rob Worrincy and Sam Barlow, and both had pretty poor games with Worrincy not being able to make much ground up down the wing and having too many handling errors, and Barlow giving away stupid penalty's.
Npower Championship (Football):
QPR V Sheffield United, QPR opened with all the possession and Wayne Routledge got the opener on 29 minutes, after stepping away from the defence and volleyed into the bottom right corner from a Heidar Helguson cross. Towards the end of the first half United came more into the game with Daniel Bogdanovic and Stephen Quinn having good chances. 7 Minutes into the second half Fourlin had a fantastic strike from the edge of the area, striking the ball across his body into the right hand side of the net, to extend QPR's lead. Helguson then got another assist on 66 minutes, after threading the ball down the right hand side of the box, Routledge shot across the United keeper Steve Simonsen into the bottom left corner of the net to get his second goal of the game. And the duo of Helguson and Routledge would of got a third goal it not for a fantastic reaction save from Simonson, after Routlede shot from 6 yards out. Rangers did create a few more opportunities but their shooting was pretty poor and did not trouble the United keeper.
Throughout the game United were pretty poor at times and its no surprise that they are 3rd from bottom, they found it hard to hold the ball, and most of the time kicked it long, with QPR coming away with the ball most of the time. Also the defenders seemed to be caught marking space, and not the attackers, or following the ball headlessly. For example for the 3rd goal left back Joe Mattock followed the player with the ball inside, leaving Routledge with lots of space out wide to run into and receive the ball, but he didn't need to follow the player as he had gone past him and he wouldn't catch him and their was also 2 other United players their to stop him. United's right back Nyron Nosworthy had a pretty poor game, and only laster 60 minutes, mis-controlling the ball several times to give away throw-ins, as well as giving away the corner that led to Fourlin's goal. QPR's man of the moment Adel Taarabt didn't really do much in the game, but his ability to hold the ball under pressure is outstanding, but his lack of defensive nous may get him caught out in the Premiership next season, as they look to have virtually guaranteed promotion.
Main Event:
ICC Cricket World Cup Final:
India V Sri Lanka, so here it is the last match of this long winded tournament that seemed to have started last decade and the game was played in front of a capacity crowd at the newly built Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Both teams had eased through their semi-finals, with India making 1 change from the team that last played, Seeresanth in for Ashish Nehra, who has a broken finger. But Sri Lanka had to make 4 changes, with Angelo Mathews, Ajantha Mendis, Chamara Silva and Rangana Herath out, and Thisara Perera, Suraj Randiv, Chamara Kapugedera and Nuwan Kulasekara in, this was mainly due to the injury to Angelo Mathews and the need to re-jig the spinners.
Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat but it was India who made the best start, allowing only 31 runs during the first 10 overs of power-play, as well as taking the wicket of Upul Tharanga, who edged into the slips off a Zaheer Khan ball for only 2 runs off 20 balls. In the 17th over, after increasing their run rate a bit, Sri Lanka lost their 2nd wicket after the ball flicked off Till Dilshan pads onto the stumps from a Harbhajan Singh ball. Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena then formed a good partnership, scoring 62 off 68 balls, before Sangakkara was out off an outside edge caught by Mahendra Sing Dhoni from a Yuvraj Singh ball. In the 32nd over Indian captain and wicketkeeper Dhoni called for a review after the ball had flicked up into his gloves, but the conclusion was that it came off Thilan Samaraweera's leg pad, but India got their next wicket in the 39th over after their second review was called and Samaraweera was then dismissed for an LBW off Yuvraj's ball, to get his second wicket. In the next over new batsman Kapugedera played a shot, off a slow ball from Zaheer Kahn, straight towards Suresh Raina, who made the easy catch, for Sri Lanka's 5th wicket to fall. India's 3rd and final review, of the first innings, came in the 44th over after Munaf Patel claimed that Nuwan Kulasekara had nicked the ball, but the original decision of not out was upheld. Kulasekara then went on to get the first 6 of the game with the first ball of the 48th over, before Jayawardena reached his century, off just 84 balls, 4 balls later, and then Kulasekara was run out after the last ball of the over. Sri Lanka ended their innings with Thisara Perera scoring a 6 off the last ball for him to finish with 23 off 9 balls. Even though they built a couple of good partnerships Sri Lanka didn't really kick on until the last 5 overs when they scored 63 off 30 balls to finish their innings with a run rate of 5.48 and a score of a score of 274 for 6. But a score of 274 was potentially defendable, as long as Sri Lanka took wickets. Zaheer Kahn had an innings of 2 halves for India, after bowling 3 maidens and only giving away 6 runs during his first 5 overs he was hit around the ground for 54 during his last 5 overs.
Lasith Malinga opened the bowling for Sri Lanka and took Virender Sehwag, who wasted a review looking for an inside edge, for an LBW with his 2nd ball, and he then got his second wicket in the 7th over as Sachin Tendulkar edged to wicketkeeper Sangakkara. India had kept up with the required run-rate but after losing their first 2 wickets they started to fall behind, but staying ahead of Sri Lanka's scoring worm, and only posted 41 runs for the first 10 overs of powerplay, their lowest score in the tournament. During the second power-play, as Sri Lanka introduced spin, India picked up the scoring, getting 40 off the 5 overs and India reached 100 during the 20th over, compared to Sri Lanka who took 24 overs, who at this stage were also 2 wickets down. During the 22nd over Dilshan bowled and had a fantastic one handed catch to dismiss Virat Kohli, for 35, but for the next 10 or so overs India kept up with the run rate, as Sri Lanka couldn't break the partnership between Gutam Gambhir and MS Dohni, and they left themselves needing 92 from the last 15 overs. Sri Lanka eventually broke the partnership, in the 42nd over, when Perera bowled Gambir for 97, giving them a slight hope of getting back into the game. In the 44th over their was a close call for a run out that went to an Umpire Review, but Dhoni was ruled to be in, and 2 balls later Sri Lanka called for a review on Yuvraj for a possible LBW shout, but their was an inside edge before it hit his pads. India caught Sri Lanka's score with 10 balls remaining, after Dhoni put the ball into the stands to score a huge 6, to win the 2011 Cricket World Cup in front of their home crowd.
Unexpectedly each teams biggest stars India's Sachin Tendulkar and Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, who was playing in his last ever game for Sri Lanka, didn't really feature in the game, with Tendulkar only scoring 18 and Muralitharan's bowling was ineffective not taking any wickets, or really making an impact on the game, and it also looked as if his injury's had caught up with him. Sri Lanka's bowling was quite economical, but their inability to take enough wickets cost them the game.
Cool-Down's:
Now the World Cup has ended, on reflection, I think that the main issue was the scheduling of the games, with the group stage taking too long to complete. Most days only had 1 game played, but if 2 games a day were played (1 day game, 1 day-night game) then it would have taken 9 less days to complete the group stage. And removing 9 days out of 43 day tournament would have made a big difference, shortening the tournament for the players and helping the group stages to develop more quickly. Anyway that doesn't matter now as it has been officially announced that the next Cricket World Cup, in 2015, will be only contested by only the 10 full ICC members, leaving out the associate members such as Ireland, Kenya, Holland and Canada. Now this is a pretty stupid decision as how are the associate members meant to improve their standard of cricket if they are not playing against the best teams, especially as they don't really play games against these teams outside of the World Cup or T20 World Cup, now if some sort of system was brought in whereby they do play the top level teams more often then it may be an understandable decision, but that is not going to happen as these games would not be seen as cost effective, i.e. not making the big teams enough profit. For the 2019 World Cup their will be a qualifying process which is a slightly better situation for the associate members, but how are the top teams meant to fit these fixtures into their already packed schedules.
Recent Results:
Npower League 1: Sheffield Wednesday 2 Colchester United 1
Evo-Stik South: Kidsgrove Athletic 2 Sheffield FC 2
No comments:
Post a Comment