WORLD CUP CRICKET : QUIZTION OF THE DAY - 22

WORLD CUP CRICKET QUIZ:

April 3rd, 2007 : Quiztion of the Day - 22

Bangladesh Cricket team was brought down to earth from their euphoria of entering into the Super 8 stage by New Zealand. The warm-up game loss to the minnows may have actually aided the Kiwis in preparing themselves for this game giving due respect to the Bangladesh team and executing their game plan with clinical precision. Like a true professional side they did not repeat any of the mistakes that they have committed four weeks back on March 6th right from the coin toss. Fleming put Bangladesh into batting first this time as he was very much aware of New Zealand top and middle order collapse in that match when he gifted the first use of the wicket in early morning conditions to the Bangladeshi bowlers after winning the toss and saw his team struggling at 75 for 6.

To their credit Bangladesh too tried not to repeat their mistakes of their disastrous outing in that rain affected 22 overs game against Australia just a couple of days ago. But they displayed extreme caution to preserve wickets and ended up losing too many when it was time to step up the run rate. As their captain Habibul Bashar put it they were either hitting too much like they did against Australia or blocking too much like they have done against the kiwis. They need to do something in between against South Africa to put up a decent performance and salvage at least some of the lost prestige with their lackluster performances during their first two games of Super 8s.

To justify their qualification to the second round of this tournament Bangladeshi cricketers now need to believe themselves and should bat their entire quota of 50 overs in case they bat first and should not let the opposition walk away with victories with more than 20 odd overs to spare. If they bowl first they should try their level best to avoid letting the opponents amass totals in excess of 300. Their test starts against the raging Springboks in their next match at Providence Stadium, Guyana on coming Saturday.

Minnows or no minnows New Zealand went according to their game plan and registered their fifth consecutive win of the tournament like Australia. Teams from down under are the only ones that have still not experienced a defeat in this World Cup edition, but that has to end by the time the tournament concludes on April 28th.

Statistical highlights of this match include a superb unbeaten century (102*) by Stephen Fleming and a miserly spell of 2 for 15 by Man of the Match, Shane Bond , which made Bangladesh to collect just 64 runs of first 20 overs and exhaust the power plays. Fleming’s hundred also made him the ninth batsman to have scored 1000 runs in World Cup matches and fourth one to do so while playing in this tournament behind Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara and Sourav Ganguly.

In an effort to curb the rush of young blood hitting at everything thrown at them Bangladesh brought in Javed Omar in to the team in place of Shahriar Nafees, thus making him a an opportunity to make his first World Cup appearance almost 12 years after making his ODI debut. On a lighter note, if VVS Laxman is still around playing active cricket and finally a selection committee gives him a chance to play for India in 2011, there might be a threat for Javed Omar's record.

Today’s ‘Quiztion of the Day’ relates to the longest gap by a player between two World Cup matches. Here it is:

Shown below is the picture of the cricketer who holds the record for longest gap between two World Cup appearances. Name the cricketer and provide the details of the games that started and ended the hiatus.

Remember to email your answers for each quiz individually to vijay@dreamcricket.com with the subject line as 'Quiztion of the Day - X' (X being the question number) through out the tournament duration. Results will be first posted on http://www.dreamcricket.com/ website within a week of the World Cup Final.

Cheers...