ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2

[The Professor]

In what is a convoluted system even by ICC standard UAE, Nepal, Scotland, USA, Namibia, Papua New Guinea and Oman began the process of selecting who participates in the next World Cup.

Effectively the top three in this league will go straight through to the next round. The next 4 will play off against each other again. The top two will join the already qualified teams.

There they will be joined by two of the teams ranked 21st to 32nd who will play off against each other in two leagues and the bottom five ranked teams from the 12 full members and Netherlands.

India qualify as hosts.

Clear?

Oman drew first blood today with a close fought victory over Papua New Guinea. It was their first ever official ODI win.

Things were looking touch and go for Oman when they were 108-5 chasing 229, but a rally led by Sandeep Goud saw them reach the total for the loss of only one further wicket.

Oman play again tomorrow - facing off against hosts, Scotland.

[yuppie]

Could you explain that again with a flow chart.... Actually don't:)

Cheers for the in Professor.

[dan08]

Could you explain that again with a flow chart.... Actually don't:)

Cheers for the in Professor.

It's actually not too bad. This chart is pretty useful: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5KJshyXkAE ... =4096x4096

[The Professor]

After Oman beat PNG and Scotland in the first two fixtures of this leg of the tournament, it was time for another team to register their first win when Scotland faced PNG today.

In the end it turned into something of a comfortable win for the home team, largely thanks to opener Kyle Coetzer who took his team through to the 37th over before he got out leaving Scotland needing just another 45 runs.

Tomorrow Scotland play their third game in three days as they face Oman again. If they get a win it will be tied at the top but if they lose Oman will be clear and away

[The Professor]

With the Scottish leg of this tournament complete, the home nation and Oman appear to be very evenly matched having won both their matches against Papua New Guinea and suffered one defeat and one victory at each other's hands over the last week.

Papua New Guinea proved they are no whipping boys today though as they gave Oman a run for their money in the last fixture. Their total of 206/8 batting first could have been higher if it were not for Jay Odedra who proved both economical and deadly as he got to 4-34. It has been a tough tournament for the bowlers. His four wickets today added to his 1 from the previous outing against PNG renders him 6th on the table for most wickets taken.

the next round of fixtures are next month in the USA where America will face Nepal and PNG.

[The Professor]

The second round of this comes to an end today with America having won three games and Namibia two. Papua New Guinea have lost all their games.

Scotland are top of the overall table on Net Run Rate but share the same amount of points as America and Oman.

[yuppie]

Namibia vs PNG live on youtube if anyones interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yv4eEWcS9E

[The Professor]

The whole darn thing is on YouTube.

[yuppie]

The whole darn thing is on YouTube.

Ive only just found this out

[The Professor]

Well there's another round in December if you can wait that long.

Namibia won the last match against Papua New Guinea despite an inspired performance from centurion Asad Vala.

With the US leg of the tournament complete Scotland, Namibia, America and Oman all have three wins and a loss whilst PNG have 8 losses!

The next round is between home side UAE, Scotland and America.

[The Professor]

And we're back on this bandwagon with UAE hosting the USA and Scotland over the next week.

USA shocked the hosts today as they comfortable overturned their total of 202. America can think Saurabh Netravalkar for bagging 5/32 - the best figures for an American in ODIs. The win takes America to the top of the table after winning three and losing one of their games in Scotland earlier in the year.

America play again tomorrow - facing off against Scotland.

[The Professor]

The Oman leg of this competition started two days ago as it is the turn of Oman, the UAE and Namibia - arguably the strongest trio of teams in the running despite UAE's depleted set up.

In the first match Oman beat UAE before the UAE registered their first victory against Namibia. Today Namibia made it one win each with a huge victory over Oman. Craig Williams' century was instrumental in getting Namibia to 324-7 - their highest ODI total. His score of 129* is also the highest ever individual ODI score for Namibia. Oman stuggled to keep up from the get go and were all out for 272. Namibia play their third consecutive game tomorrow - facing off against the UAE.

[The Professor]

The Associate Never Ending Tour has moved on to Namibia who beat Oman today thanks to a 5-fer and a half century from JJ Smit as Oman, chasing 228, got nowhere near.

Namibia have played 8 and won 5 leaving them 4th whilst Oman have played 19(!!!!) with this being their 5th loss. They are top of the table. The only other team in this leg of the tournament are the UAE who are 6th with 3 wins from 7.

[The Professor]

I think I know an awful lot of cricket and there is probably very rarely a 3 or 4 hour period of time where I am not checking cricket results. I also think I am of above average intelligence. With all this in mind if I don't have a scooby doo of what's going on in the Cricket World Cup League 2 competition, there must be vast swathes of people who don't even know where to start.

For a start there is Oman who are at the top of the table after having played 21 games whilst in 6th lies their current competitors the UAE who have played 8. Another confusing thing is that normally this is a little Associates Asemble tournament with four or five teams all rocking up and having a round Robin. This series of games appears to just be Oman playing the UAE three times. I get that some of this confusion will be covid related but it is still rather baffling.

This aside it was a pretty decent game today with 2 centuries and 615 runs shared between the two teams. In the end it was the team that boasted the highest individual scorer, Chirag Suri, who ran out winners. His 115 runs saw the UAE throw up an upset (maybe, possibly, who knows) and chase down Oman's total of 307.

For what it's worth the two totals today eete the second and third highest of the tournament.

The second game is tomorrow.

[The Professor]

Here we are; back on Associate Cricket's Never-Ending tour as Oman, the UAE and Namibia Rock up in Dubai. As I have mentioned before there is a HUGE disparity regarding how many fixtures each team has played out. Oman top the table but have lacked 24 games, the UAE are 4th having played 11 with Namibia a place below them having played 2 fewer games. The best way to look at form is probably win ratio; which still puts Oman as top with 62.5% but Namibia are better value than they look have won 55.6% of their games. The UAE have won just 45.5%.


This form book played out as you'd expect in the first game today as Oman best the UAE. After posting 225-7, the UAE put up a fight but regular wickets from Bilal Khan (5-31) saw them fall 12 runs short. These five wickets sees Bilal Khan increase his lead at the top of the wicket taking charts to a huge 8 wickets.

Oman are back in action against Namibia tomorrow