Warm-up in a Frozen Zone (13 May 1999)

13 May 1999

Warm-up in a Frozen Zone

Trevor Chesterfield

Being asked if you enjoying the World Cup days before it has started does have its problems, especially as you sift through the damp to wet forecasts and explain to loved ones in South Africa why May in England can be as unpleasant as Port Elizabeth in July.

It is not much fun for the 10-non British Isles teams either. They have been dashing around playing "warm up" matches in weather which is far from warm and wet with it and wonder why on earth the organisers did not wait until the more temperate months of August and September to stage the event.

Certainly not the sort of weather to prepare one of the favoured teams to win the event. Pakistan have had more rain dumped on their efforts than their captain Wasim Akram would have enjoyed; India also lost more middle practice than they would have cared and Zimbabwe fared almost the same fate.

Not that the "warm ups" have been without their smack of controversy during these blustery May days which pass as mild to middling spring makeovers and more suitable for huddling into overcoats.

Apart from the eccentricity of the Duckworth/Lewis system seeking teams to score at an imagined rate because of some format which fails to take into account team collapses late in the match, the umpires and the International Cricket Council might also land in the dock.

South Africa's attacking opener Herscehelle Gibbs was dismissed for 41 in the match against Middlesex at Southgate on Monday. Only clause five of the playing conditions was casually overlooked by umpires, Messrs Darrel Hair and Subash Modi. And Modi, from Kenya, seemed to take his lead from Hair, an ICC Test panel umpire.

What an embarrassment to a hear South Africa's players shouting "no ball... no ball" from the boundary when they noticed that Middlesex had more than seven players outside the two 27.5 metre semi-circles. So much for upholding the law and order as they allowed their attention to slip as Gibbs, in full flow, was allowed to be given out caught. Little wonder the Western Province batting dynamo felt he was entitled to a "free hit" under normal limited-overs fielding etiquette.

Ah well ... perhaps it was because it was a warm-up slog and accounted for little other than Middlesex's bowling providing further cannon fodder for the South African batsmen that it was allowed to slip past, especially with no third man peering into a monitor or a match referees in attendance. You can "betcha" though that South Africa's coach Bob Woolmer and his two assistants, Graham Ford and Corrie van Zyl, along with the captain, Hansie Cronje, have whispered some comment in the right quarters.

With the opening of the event at Lord's today where England take on Sri Lanka, London is catching up to the rest of the country by acknowledging there is something else taking place and more important than Manchester whoever aiming for some title which is not of the slightest interest to the millions in Colombo, Calcutta, Sydney or Wellington.

In fact, it might be an idea if Fifi (or whichever organisation dishes out these four-yearly jamborees known as the Tin Cup) allocates the 2006 misadventure to Outer Mongolia and allow the rest of Africa and the world to be spared the excesses which surround such a boring spectacle.

Having to wade through four pages of endless uninteresting broadsheet to see how Yorkshire are doing smears more than enough ink on my hands.

When your friendly (London) neighbourhood bookmaker blushing declines to place the odds of either Scotland or Bangladesh on the World Cup betting board then you know than anything after Kenya (at 500/1) is not worth a flutter.

Such is the derision surrounding either side that bookmakers are quite willing to take your money without blinking an eye and pat you on the back for parting with, for them, an easy and do it with "you're a real pal" grin. For all you are going to get back you might as well give it to some homeless character inhabiting a cardboard box the bottom of the local high street.

But that is the general view of such sides in this tournament.

Bangladesh are in on the strength of winning the ICC Trophy tournament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1997, while Scotland qualified by ending in the top three. And as no one, sadly at this stage, takes notice of such far offshore events as an ICC tournament, how the two sides managed to qualify has been forgotten/ignored/don't care - take your pick.

So when they meet in their Group B match at the Grange Cricket Club, Edinburgh on May 24, it should be fun. The game has at least attracted a full house sign, which says something for Scottish interest with the venue upgraded by, give a thousand or two.

Predictions for Bangladesh are five successive defeats and utter humiliation; Scotland normally have first round departures in most other events carrying a World Cup tags.

Well, the fourth of the Asian sub-continent countries in this tournament have done pretty well in the "warm-up games". They beat both Essex and Middlesex with the aid of the Duckworth/Lewis format so suggesting they are as pulpy as last week's market garden's left-overs is perhaps a little presumptuous of the neighbourhood bookie.

But like the tabloids, bookies are inclined towards assuming that sort of brazen brashness which smacks of typical Australian over-confidence. Yet, as a nation with full ICC limited-overs international status Bangladesh are not exactly your village green exponents either.

Source :: Trevor Chesterfield