Cricket Web's World Twenty20 Predictions- Revisited

[James]

Cricket Web's World Twenty20 Predictions- Revisited

On the eve of the recently-completed World Twenty20 tournament, four members of the Cricket Web staff- James Nixon, Martyn Corrin, Ganesh Venkatasubramanian and Will Quinn- gave their predictions on how it would go. The time has now come to look back and see how they fared.

[nightprowler10]

Have to say I'm surprised no one picked Gul. He's been the best bowler in this format for two years but everyone seems to criminally underrate him. I remember people making T20 XI's in some thread and no one even thought of him till the fourth page!

[Naumaan]

Atleast my predictions were better then these guys

[GeraintIsMyHero]

Originally Posted by nightprowler10

Have to say I'm surprised no one picked Gul. He's been the best bowler in this format for two years but everyone seems to criminally underrate him. I remember people making T20 XI's in some thread and no one even thought of him till the fourth page!

In my defence I did single him out in the Pakistan preview

[Manee]

You all suck at predictions, but it a brilliant feature article and I look forward to seeing it for the Ashes.

[Uppercut]

Originally Posted by nightprowler10

Have to say I'm surprised no one picked Gul. He's been the best bowler in this format for two years but everyone seems to criminally underrate him. I remember people making T20 XI's in some thread and no one even thought of him till the fourth page!

I thought about him, but there were a lot of questions coming into the tournament. Pakistan hadn't played much cricket lately, to say the least. How was his fitness? Would he still be as sharp?

He missed the IPL, and wasn't quite at his best in IPL 1 IIRC. Is there any reason to believe he'll suddenly regain the form of the last World T20 in a game that has moved on significantly in that time?

Pakistan didn't seem to be one of the strongest sides. Would they even get far enough for Gul to take more wickets than anyone else?

It's not that we underrated him, there was just a lot of uncertainty surrounding Gul and Pakistan. It would have been a brave man to predict him to outbowl every one of Steyn, Parnell, Edwards, Mendis, Murali, Malinga, Johnson, Vettori, Harbhajan, Afridi and Ajmal.

[Manee]

Originally Posted by Uppercut

I thought about him, but there were a lot of questions coming into the tournament. Pakistan hadn't played much cricket lately, to say the least. How was his fitness? Would he still be as sharp?

His warm up games were not too special, either.

[Faisal1985]

Generally there is a tendency among writers and analysts of the Cricket World of being unfairly biased towards Pakistan Players.

I am not surprised that one of the best T20 bowlers was not even looked at.

[Uppercut]

I'm going to ignore that criticism and bask in the glory of being referred to as a writer and/or analyst of the cricket world

[Faisal1985]

Hopefully it will lead to some better, thoughtful and unbiased predictions for future.

[Sanz]

Originally Posted by Faisal1985

Hopefully it will lead to some better, thoughtful and unbiased predictions for future.

What is so biased here ?

[Faisal1985]

Even if we look at the strengths of the teams pre world cup nothing suggested to me that SA were to lose this time. Still most predictions on this forum were about India. Needless to say but these predictions were desired and not statistical based and hence biased.

On the other hand:

Pakistan had the best win/loss ratio among all teams before the WC began along with the highest Wicket Taker Umar Gul and the Man of the series Shahid Afridi from 2007 WC in there squads. Right before the start of the World Cup they overwhelmed Aussies in the T20. Yet there was only 1 person who counted Pakistan in their predictions here and that to no surprise of mine was a Pakistani. Moreover if it wasn't for the needless scoop of Misbah in 2007 Pakistan would have been the defending champs.

But i don't blame anyone because losers like Boycott also ruled out Pakistan.

Its only a matter of time when Mohammad Asif, Umar Gul, and Mohammad Aamir become one of the most lethel bowling attacks in the world. Looking forward to it.

[Xuhaib]

Originally Posted by Faisal1985

Even if we look at the strengths of the teams pre world cup nothing suggested to me that SA were to lose this time. Still most predictions on this forum were about India. Needless to say but these predictions were desired and not statistical based and hence biased.

On the other hand:

Pakistan had the best win/loss ratio among all teams before the WC began along with the highest Wicket Taker Umar Gul and the Man of the series Shahid Afridi from 2007 WC in there squads. Right before the start of the World Cup they overwhelmed Aussies in the T20. Yet there was only 1 person who counted Pakistan in their predictions here and that to no surprise of mine was a Pakistani. Moreover if it wasn't for the needless scoop of Misbah in 2007 Pakistan would have been the defending champs.

But i don't blame anyone because losers like Boycott also ruled out Pakistan.

Its only a matter of time when Mohammad Asif, Umar Gul, and Mohammad Aamir become one of the most lethel bowling attacks in the world. Looking forward to it.

Bro we won the tourney be happy and just move on with it no need to be an angry young man. TBF to those esteemed analysts of CW there was nothing positive about Pakistan coming in to this tourney and the warm up games only confirmed the feeling that they would struggle. Forget CW not even the biggest cricket pundit would have predicted our victory.

[Xuhaib]

edit.

[Fusion]

Originally Posted by Faisal1985

Hopefully it will lead to some better, thoughtful and unbiased predictions for future.

Originally Posted by Xuhaib

Bro we won the tourney be happy and just move on with it no need to be an angry young man. TBF to those esteemed analysts of CW there was nothing positive about Pakistan coming in to this tourney and the warm up games only confirmed the feeling that they would struggle. Forget CW not even the biggest cricket pundit would have predicted our victory.

What Xuhaib said.