South Africa v Australia Fourth ODI Report Card

Featuring preparing for the World Cup and complacency

Preparing For The World Cup
Grade: D

ODIs as far as the eye could see (ie, while scrolling through an app containing scorecards of live matches)! With a World Cup imminent, three matches were taking place simultaneously, as everybody desperately worked on their final preparations for the tournament. South Africa v Australia. England v New Zealand. India v Bangladesh. 

Could I OD on ODIs?

No. But surely to properly prepare for the World Cup, these teams needed to not just be batting, bowling and fielding. A World Cup campaign is a multi-faceted thing. It’s just as important to practise keeping a close watch of the others’ matches, postulating, perhaps, how it would really help our semi-final prospects if New Zealand beat England. Or closely monitoring India’s NRR and how it compares to your own and how that might affect the chances of progressing. Hoping for the very worst for those nations you least wish to face in the finals. Little skills that come to the fore in the back half of a tournament.

(Then, of course, it should rain with the match tied on DLS and South Africa knocked out based on, I dunno, a countback to the time Brian Lara single-handedly beat them.)