WCL Division 1: Canada v Scotland

Last night was extremely disappointing, both for me and for Canada. With the delay in coverage, I fell asleep, and then Canada layed the egg that they did, going down to an awful defeat to the Netherlands. Hopefully tonight against Scotland will go better. 20 minutes till game time, and hopefully there are no more technical issues from Kenya. Put up some comments, and if I manage to stay awake I'll put up some thoughts here.

Get rid of the geezers!

That was just poor, time to rant.

It is not fair to pin all of Canada's recent ODI struggles on one man, but it is also impossible to ignore the typical odd manner in which the CCA's selection committee chooses the players for the side. I have tried to be patient, to not overly criticize them for the job they do, but this is the final straw.

When they named 40-year-old former West Indies bowler Anderson Cummins to the squad, eyebrows were raised. I tried to calm the other people I spoke with, hoping that they would be using him more like an additional coach than as a featured bowler - I couldn't have been more wrong. Cummins has become - for some reason - a fixture in the Canadian XI on their current African tour. He has taken a place in the lineup that could have been held by a much younger man, perhaps Austin Codrington, and has done nothing to deserve it. Some would blame the captain, or the coach, but it is already well-known that it is the selectors who choose the team for Canada.

What has the great Cummins done since his insertion? He has played in 4 matches. He has batted three times.......and scored a grand total of 1 run. Oh that's alright, he's not supposed to score, he's a gun bowler and that's where he wil make his contribution. Oops, not that either- 3 wickets at an average of 61.00, with an economy of 6.54 runs/over.

Not good enough.

Now I don't blame the man himself - if I were to get selected for a trip to Africa I would take it too. The blame rests on the selectors whose knowledge of cricket seems to be limited to a time ending about 10 years ago. There are other similar choices made - such as Desmond Chumney's 20.47 batting average being preferred to Don Maxwell's 37.25. I do not understand why Canada continues to handicap itself and not field it's best possible team...

All this having been said, it still would have been very difficult for Canada to beat the Netherlands on this day. Ryan ten Doeschate is a spectacular player with bat and ball, and his supporting cast makes them a formidable team on any day. My problem is with the fact that Canada does not give itself the best chance possible to win by playing players for political reasons rather than purely 'cricket' reasons as they should.

....well, that feels better. Let's go beat Scotland tonight!

WCL Round 1: Canada v Netherlands

Well, it seems as though all the internet in Nairobi is down. Neither CricketEurope nor Cricinfo have any scores coming out, and we should be 20 minutes into play. I've got the coffee pot on, and I'm going to try my darndest to make it through at least the majority of this match, but if they don't get going soon I'm going to head off to bed. CricketEurope will have live scores, so head over there if you want to get those. Here you'll get a healthy dose of Canadian fandom (as opposed to more neutral pieces I publish on CE). The big question for Canada will be if they can get good contributions from BOTH the bowlers and batsmen on the same day. If they do, they can beat anyone. If they don't, they can lose to anyone. Stay tuned!

World Cricket League Division 1

Sorry I haven't posted on here in awhile. We've been quite busy working on CricketEurope, and getting things up and running there with the Canada section. In any case, I'll hopefully be posting on here more often as we head through the WCL and up to the World Cup.

The World Cricket League Division 1 tournament kicks off in about 4 hours in Nairobi, Kenya and it promises to be a very exciting time. All six of the top associates are there and will play a single round-robin, before the top two teams play the finals for the trophy. Both finalists will also earn a spot along with the Test teams in next year's Twenty20 world cup. Canada come into the tournament just rounding into form, having won the last game of the tri-series over Kenya and also a warm-up match against Uganda. They also have seen the return of Umar Bhatti from injury, and hopefully he and Henry Osinde can wreak some havoc with the opposing batsmen!

CricketEurope will be covering the tournament comprehensively, and will be covering the majority of the matches LIVE. Feel free to post any comments here and I'll respond to them as best I can. Here's Canada's match schedule:

• January 30 - Canada v Netherlands
  
• January 31 - Canada v Scotland
• February 2 - Canada v Bermuda
• February 4 - Ireland v Canada
• February 5 - Kenya v Canada
• February 7 - FINALS?