The Champions Trophy in South Africa

I want to first start this blog with an admission that I was wrong, get used to it I don't admit that I was wrong often, last week I predicted that England would lose the One-Day series to Australia 7-0, however in the last game of the series they managed to scrape a win and eventually only lost the series 6-1 (a huge comfort to all England supporters I am sure)

So back to business, yesterday I settled down in front of the TV to watch the first game of the 2009 Champions Trophy and I was hoping for a classic match, full of entertainment and between the 2 big favourites to win the competition outright: South Africa (the hosts) and Sri Lanka. On paper they both have very good sides but what we actually saw was a one-sided encounter that was oddly reminiscent of England getting thrashed by Australia just a few days ago.

Firstly Sri Lankas batting was magnificent to behold with Tillekeratne Dilshan continuing his fine International form with a quickfire 106 off just 92 balls. The other 2 main contributors were Kumar Sangakarra and Mahela Jayawardene who both hit 50's in a huge total of 319 - 8 off 50 overs which amazingly only included two 6's. Unfortunately where there is a lot of runs and individual high scores there is always a bowler whose figures look very bad and yesterday was a bad day for young Wayne Parnell who took 10-0-79-3, with all 3 of his wickets coming in his last 2 overs.

So with such a huge total to chase down all eyes turned to the South African batting line up and what a good line up it was full of quality players such as Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, AB De Villiers and Mark Boucher. This was one batting line up that you thought might actually have a chance of chasing down such a total, however it wasn't to be with Graeme Smith making the only 50 in their innings and a batting collapse seeing them go from 90-1 to 113-4. A lot has to be said about Ajantha Mendis's spin bowling as even though he has been around 18 months now people still cannot pick him and are still unsure of what ball he is bowling which is why he finished with such good figures of 7-0-30-3.

However in the end it was the rain that had the final say as Sri Lanka won by 55 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method and Sri Lanka registered the first win of the tournament. Unfortunately for England these 2 are definitely the best teams in the competition and as they are both in our group I don't see us winning a game unless we can sneak one against New Zealand who themselves are a very good One-Day International team.

So with 1 game down and another 14 to go, and the prospect of Pakistan vs West Indies later today, I must bid you goodbye.