Match thread: Zimbabwe vs Ireland (incl. Uganda tour match)

Zhuwawo? Why!? Earth calling Prosper... we have better bowlers than this...

*sigh*

This is where Zimbabwe lacks the killer instinct. Now Zhuwawo is having a bowl... Utseya should have given the ball to Chigumbura at least (if not Mpofu as well). To bowl them all out quickly will kill Ireland's confidence, by allowing them to get a partnership going Ireland are going to find positives out of the match.

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:*sigh*

I was thinking more ::headdesk:: myself.

And then this happened:

DT Johnston c Price b Dabengwa 12

::walks off whistling::

Geez, Prosper's having a bit of luck today. Imagine if he'd tried the unconventional opening with spin or the Dabengwa/Zhuwawo experiment against any other team...

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:Geez, Prosper's having a bit of luck today.

Which is a problem. I don't think we want him trying the unconventional approach against stronger teams...

KJ O'Brien c wicketkeeperTaibu b Dabengwa 38

I don't believe it. :o

maehara wrote:

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:Geez, Prosper's having a bit of luck today.

Which is a problem. I don't think we want him trying the unconventional approach against stronger teams...

I think Alistair Campbell planted the seed... in one of the after match interviews and during the commentaries in Canada, he kept commenting on what a good move it was to open the bowling with spin. Hopefully Utseya doesn't see this as justification to do it forever now. Great to trick the opposition occasionally in a Twenty20 or low scoring ODI as I said earlier, but the fast bowlers opening is a tried and true strategy. One just has to look at our T20 win against Australia as to why.

Gee we are a cynical bunch aren't we, even when we hammer the opposition we still find fundamental problems in the gameplan :o :o 😂

It looks like Dabengwa has secured his spot for the series now...

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:even when we hammer the opposition we still find fundamental problems in the gameplan :o :o 😂

This glass is half-empty.. :)

I guess our belief took a knock after the Uganda and Canada "incidents" :(

Zim win by 156 runs, with Dabengwa being statistically our best bowler on the day (!). I can live with that...

Series Table
Code: Select all
Pl W L T NR Pts NRR
1 Zimbabwe 1 1 0 0 0 4 +3.120
2 Kenya - - - - 0 0
3 Ireland 1 0 1 0 0 0 -3.120

ICC ODI Rankings: after 1st Match
Code: Select all
Pl Pts Rating Ch
9 Bangladesh 30 1420 47
10 Zimbabwe 16 309 19 +3
11 Ireland 9 140 16 -6
12 Kenya 3 0 0

(Ch = change in rating over course of series)

A win by Ireland over Kenya tomorrow would put Ireland back on 19 points - but Zim would still be the higher-ranked team when the ratings are calculated to 3 decimal places (19.000 vs 19.313). Kenya would remain on zero.

A Kenya win would see Kenya take 11th place on 17pts, and Ireland fall to 12th with 9pts.

So what do we have to do to maximise our ICC ranking for the series? Beat Ireland by a large margin each time and hope that Ireland (and Zimbabwe) continue to beat Kenya, thus allowing for a Zimbabwe vs Ireland final and another opportunity to take points off them?

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:So what do we have to do to maximise our ICC ranking for the series? Beat Ireland by a large margin each time and hope that Ireland (and Zimbabwe) continue to beat Kenya, thus allowing for a Zimbabwe vs Ireland final and another opportunity to take points off them?

Pretty much - because Kenya have so few games played, they potentially get a huge score for a win in this tournament - if they win all their group matches, they'll end on 37pts, well ahead of Zim. We can't catch Bangladesh, but if we win all our matches, and Kenya lose all theirs (Ireland picking up the points in between), then at the end of the group stage it would be Zim in 10th on 25pts, Ireland in 11th on 18pts, Kenya still on zero.

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:Beat Ireland by a large margin each time

Oh - and winning margin makes no difference. Same ranking points on offer whether you win by 1 run or 300 - which seems a little unfair to me, but that's how it works.

Have a play with this for all the permutations (works in IE only, damn the developer...)

How could Ireland gain 3 points by beating Kenya if Kenya have no points to concede? Are you able to go into negatives?

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:How could Ireland gain 3 points by beating Kenya if Kenya have no points to concede? Are you able to go into negatives?

Number of points on offer is based on the difference in rating points between the two sides, plus some adjustments that may apply (eg if the difference in rating between the two sides is more than 50). You can't go negative, but there'll always be something on offer.

ICC used to have a page up with the calculation method - it's gone now so I'm working from memory, but I believe that even if both sides are on the same number of rating points, there's an adjustment applied to make sure there are some points on offer.

Because rating points = points / matches played, the fewer matches you have on the table, the bigger a difference any given match will make to your rating. Kenya will benefit from this over this tourney, if they can win anything.

EDIT: God bless Wikipedia, they have the calculation method.

maehara wrote:

brmtaylor.com admin wrote:How could Ireland gain 3 points by beating Kenya if Kenya have no points to concede? Are you able to go into negatives?

Number of points on offer is based on the difference in rating points between the two sides, plus some adjustments that may apply (eg if the difference in rating between the two sides is more than 50). You can't go negative, but unless the two teams playing both have the same number of rating points there'll always be something on offer.

Oh okay, that makes sense then. It would be good if we can close the gap with Bangladesh... there's no doubt in my mind that Zimbabwe are improving, but so are Bangladesh. My concern is that they might be improving at a quicker rate than us. I think the one thing Zimbabwe has over Bangladesh is the quality individual players. Only Ashraful and Mashrafe come to mind as outstanding players for Bangladesh, while Zimbabwe has Taibu, Masakadza and Price as the proven performers.