Van Meekeren's redemption, and Oman's fire

Sidharth Monga: Unchecked tempers and clenched fists
Ireland v Oman, Dharamsala, March 9, and Bangladesh v Oman, Dharamsala, March 13

Sultan Ahmed is 38. Amir Ali is 37. They play cricket together, not for their country of birth, but for a country they migrated to for a livelihood. In their first match on the world stage, they come together at 137 for 6 in a chase of 155 against Ireland. Amir has done all the hard work, reviving Oman from 90 for 5. He is on 27 off 13, and the equation has now come down to 16 runs off nine balls. Sultan is on strike, facing Boyd Rankin, who has got a wicket earlier in the over. He misses the ball and starts running. Amir runs too, but then realises Niall O'Brien has been quick and alert behind the wicket. Sultan is run out, and he lashes out at the man who has kept Oman alive.

This kind of emotion is rare to see in elite sport; there is disappointment, despair and frustration taken out at one's own team-mate. Fortunately for Oman, Max Sorensen bowls an ordinary over, and the two men bask in the glory next to each other at the post-match presentation and the press conference. When they are walking off, I remind Sultan - in front of Amir - how he had absolutely lost it after that run-out. They can now say it was done in the heat of the moment, and that the plan was to run if he missed and bring the settled batsman back on strike. And though Sultan was livid then, he now recognises that Amir did the smart thing by not risking his own wicket.

In their next game, against Bangladesh, Oman show that they are not the side to keep their emotions in check. There is gesticulation at every error in the field, and there are a few. There are those little clenched fists at every boundary in the home stretch of the chase; and there is flamboyance with their celebrations. It was a short ride, but they took you along on it.

Melinda Farrell: Van Meekeren's spotlight
Bangladesh v Netherlands, Dharamsala, March 9

It's finger-numbingly cold in the shadows of the Himalayas as Paul van Meekeren waits at third man. The 23-year-old Netherlands seamer is nervous. It's his first appearance at a world tournament. It's the fifth ball of the match and Bangladesh opener Soumya Sarkar charges down the wicket for a good old slog only to find a thick edge.The ball arcs towards van Meekeran through the sparse atmosphere. He's sure he has this. A metre inside the boundary, hands above head, the ball hits his fingers. And spits straight through them. Dropped. In a match where everything is on the line.

Three overs later, Peter Borren throws van Meekeren the ball. As he walks back to his mark, the nerves quieten. He's a bowler. This is why he's here. He's going to enjoy this moment. Sarkar gets into his crouch and waits.

Van Meekeren practises on artificial mats, but here, his tall, gangly form gallops in on grass. He somehow extracts bounce on a pitch that looks like concrete but plays like cardboard. Sarkar is taken by surprise as he flays at the ball and edges to the keeper. Van Meekeren has a wicket with his first ball on the world stage.

Redemption begets confidence; the early mistake is forgotten and he is in this match now, hungry. He will bowl 35 more deliveries in this competition. He will take five more wickets and concede just 31 runs. But it wouldn't be enough.

Then, he'd pack his bags and go home to wait four more years for another chance, his moment in the sun as fleeting as glimpses of the Himalayan peaks as the clouds close in.

Karthik Krishnaswamy: Shahzad's rampage
Afghanistan v Zimbabwe, Nagpur, March 12

Mohammad Shahzad is in red-hot form, but he is looking a little edgy in this winner-takes-all clash, and chops Wellington Masakadza's left-arm spin straight to the point fielder three times in the first over. Something has to give. Tendai Chatara digs one in short, and is forced to flinch before he can even start his follow-through. Behind him, the umpire ducks. Shahzad has just swatted the ball back down the ground, meatily, like a down-the-line tennis forehand.

It's hard to believe Afghanistan left Shahzad out of their squad for the 2015 World Cup. It might be okay, though still debatable, for a top-ranked team with plenty of bench strength to leave out a skillful player for supposedly not conforming to fitness standards. It's an entirely different matter when a chronically inconsistent batting side leaves out its best batsman on those tenuous grounds. It's easy to chuckle at Shahzad's cartoonish physique, but he's a seriously good cricketer: he averages over 50 in first-class cricket, over 35 in ODIs, and over 30 in T20Is.

Shahzad is a laid-back character, but the power in his shots might well stem from anger at that snub. Chatara bowls two more short balls. The first one is wide of off stump, and it rockets to the point boundary before anyone can blink. The other is rising towards his head, but he steps across it, swivels, and hooks - in utterly textbook fashion - to the fine-leg boundary. Chatara is forced to bowl a little fuller, and Shahzad is waiting for it. Third man is up in the circle, and he opens his bat face, finishing with the back of his bat pointing down the pitch, to dab it to the fielder's left and pick up his fourth boundary of the over.

Jarrod Kimber: Cricket's global avatar
Hong Kong v Zimbabwe, Nagpur, March 8

Tanwir Afzal is not a household name. Or face. Or even someone who people even casually recognise. He is Hong Kong's captain and tossed the coin for the first game. India newspapers at the time were suggesting the tournament started in seven days' time. Even the TV commentators have, at times, suggested the real tournament starts later on. But the ICC has decided that these qualifiers are part of the tournament; even if it is just a face-saving excercise, that is the official stance. So think of how far cricket has come. On the opening day of this tournament, our second biggest in cricket, when Afzal chose to open the bowling, it was a Hong Kong bowler who opened the tournament. We were told for years that the world did not like cricket, that it was our little game, and that it would always stay that way. No matter our age, none of us when we were young would think a Hong Kong bowler would be the first player we would see at a tournament this big. If we have come this far, how far can we go?