It is over (so to speak)

Congratulations to the winners:

1) Paul - 1776
2) Missy - 1772
3) Sarah - 1662

It was very exciting. I was watching the game with Missy and had Paul on MSN Chat. Missy had 11 players and Paul had 9. Missy unleashed her WMDs while Paul was trying to track the scores. It seemed to go back and forth with each wicket. By Paul's estimate they were tied at the end of the game. The final score showed Paul to be the winner. If Gilchrist had made 1 more run the game would have gone the other way.

This is the closest finish we have ever had in the Robinson World Cup. It kept me on the edge of my seat until the end.

The game itself was pretty good even though it was shortened by rain and ended in the dark. Australia set a formidable target for Sri Lanka who were on track to beat it until Sangakara and Jayasuraya went out. There was a lot of good cricket and it was fun to watch, which is all we can ask for from a final (well, except for Australia winning.)

Here is the final worm.



Other notable events: Katy made a valiant effort to catch up with catherine but didnt quite make it even though her captain finally came through for her. Henry had just enough point to make it into the top 6 and knock me back down to 7th. Thanks a lot.

Moira stuck to her guns for a solid 12 place finish and so earns the sweaty world cup teddy bear of 12th place-ness. Paul get the shirt of first place-ness. Missy came in second and has requested the third place prize of the hat coz she doesn't know what a cricket ball is and so, if that is ok with you Sarah, she wins the hat and you win the cricket ball.

Also, we bought a floating trophy of a signature cricket bat that will go to Paul as the winner. I will get his name put on it, and in 4 years time it will go to the next winner of the Robinson World Cup. It shall hence forth (I always wanted to say that) be known as the Sweaty Robinson World Cup Trophy of Winningness. Here is a picture of the bat and the bear.



Thank you to everyone for taking part and getting into the spirit of the game. It has made the world cup a lot more interesting and exciting for me than it would have been and I think it has done a good job of getting everyone together to enjoy it even though we are all separated on various continents. We will do it again in 4 years time, so start studying up already!

Love,
Michael

South Africa crash and burn.

Oh well, so South Africa didn't come to play. This isn't the first time and it probably will not be the last. I really hope the final is a somewhat more exciting game. At this point in the game I'm sure everyone has very similar teams and so everyone's worms had a similar climb. The notables are Missy and Catherine who have closed in slightly on their nearest rivals. Henry is also getting close to kicking my butt.



It is going to be very interesting to see the final outcome of the Robinson World Cup. The final blog entry will be after the game on Saturday. I hope everyone has had a lot of fun. I have really enjoyed it, I think it has been a great way to quickly and easily make fun of multiple family members. After this I'll have to go back to making fun of Katy on her own.

Ciao,
Michael

Sri Lanka in the final

Hi all,

We are into the semi-finals. Sri Lanka beat New Zealand easily. Some say New Zealand under performed but the official South African decription for their performance is "pieperig". Let us hope the South Africa - Australia game is a more exciting one.

Despite the poor game some people had some big jumps and people changed positions. Lynda continues her fall from the top to a new place in 10th spot, as Graeme jump ahead of her. He gets the sweaty jumps ahead of the ex pregnant chick award of secret teamness award.

Henry is poised for a jump up a couple of positions, so watch him with his Pontying captain. It will be very intereting to see what happens at the top.

Here is the worm.



Let us know where you would like to end up by the end, who is it you are trying to beat. I would be over the moon just to get ahead of my wife. It would be a dream come true.

Enjoy the last few games,
Michael

Some more photos from our trip

I have added a couple more photos from our trip on flickr. Click on the picture and then browse.

Most exciting game so far!

Wow! I watched the England-Windies game and that was the most exciting game of the tournament so far! West Indies set up a good score of 300 with Gayle and Samuels each contributing a lot of runs quickly. England came in and, like Catherine said, Vaughn had a his first good knock of the competition (see Catherine's worm for details.) Pieterson and Nixon looked like they would maintain the required 9.5 run rate to win the game. Pieterson scored his hundred in 98 ball with a big 6. He then went out bowled by Taylor very next ball and I screamed. The notorious Plunket went out soon afterwards. England needed 48 off 36 ball to win and the West Indies looked like they were going to win. Nixon managed to keep things going, picking up where Pieterson left off and put England back in the driving seat.

Nixon managed to get the final over down to 4 required from 6 balls. When Nixon was bowled by one of Bravo's excellent slower deliveries it was down to Broad and Jimmy Anderson to find three from four balls. Off the penultimate delivery Lara, in his final gesture as an international player, brought the field in and Broad, at the opposite end of his career, hit a one over cover to win the game. Phew! I was on the edge of my seat for the last 15 overs of the game. Excellent stuff.

Here is the worm:



Things are heating up at the top, Sarah kinda pounced as Missy and Paul too a bit of a break, preparing their troops for the final 3 game showdown. Catherine made a last minute surge with her captain Vaughn and Henry came up nicely too. The rest of us just keep ticking along listening to Katy swear at Gayle.

Oh, and Graeme has reached a score of Eleventy One.

See you all on Tuesday.
Michael

Did I mention that Australia will win?

Hi all,

Australia looked unstoppable against New Zealand making NZ look like amateurs. Here is the worm.



I spoke to Missy last night and she has all sorts of plans to get into first place, so Paul, you better watch out. Here team is incognito so that Paul cannot pick up her stratergy.

The England-West Indies game, the last of the super 8 round, is on right now. Lara went out with 18 on a run out, which is unfortunate for him. This is his last game of international cricket. The ground is full, which is a good thing, I think they let people in for free or something. West Indies are moving along nicely and England are going to have to play very well to win.

The semi finals are next Tuesday and Wednesday and the final is Saturday, so there will be a pause for a few days in the blog.

An katy, you should have kept Gayle as your captain :-).

Ciao,
Michael

West Indies finally win one.

Hi all,

Not much going on yesterday. West Indies finally won a game, woohoo. And it looks like Lara will be retiring after their last game tomorrow. New Zealand have just started their game against Australia, which me be a copy of the final, so it should be interesting. There should be a bunch of points flowing, unlike yesterday's game. Here is the worm, the only significant change is Graeme's recovery. The P's and Q's and remaining M's are doing well for him.



Moira seems to be getting quite competitive for a tail ender. Maybe she has a big late surge planned and will take the Tiddlywinks World Cup. She gets the Sweaty Better Late Than Never award of Silliness.

Enjoy the game today, let us hope it is a good one.
Michael

Ireland were a bit dismal

Ireland were beaten today in only 10 overs, which must be some kind of record. In any case there was not much opportunity for points unless you had some Sri Lankan bowling which I'm sure Sandi has.



Paul looks safe in first place although Missy is still holding out some hope. I am hoping to catch up to Sarah and get a medal spot and Katy is hoping I don't beat her and that she beats Catherine. Catherine just wants to win but not sure how she is going to do that. Janet and Henry are locked in a tight battle and I hope to stay ahead of them. Lynda is slowly drifting lower and has all sorts of baby excuses. Graeme is making a late comeback and he and Sandi are now fighting it out. Moira is happily coming along not bothering anyone and nobody bothering her. So in general nobody is happy about where they are except for Moira and Paul. What does this mean you ask? How the heck should I know. What am I, a philosopher??

Anyway, the few remaining games should be interesting even though there is not much at stake besides pride at this point.

Enjoy what is left,
Michael

The Prizes!

Here are the prizes the winners will be getting for the Robinson World Cup.

First place: South Africa Polo Shirt


Second Place: Cricket World Cup Cricket Ball


Third Place: Cricket World Cup West Indies Baseball? Cap

South Africa are through

Hi everyone,

Good news (for some), South Africa are into the semi-finals. The easily beat England yesterday in 19 overs. Graeme Smith was the points guy of the day, along with Hall who took 5 wickets. Anyone with either of these two players did very well. Missy had a nice jump with Graeme Smith as her captain once again.

The semi-final games will most likely be South Africa - Australia and Sri Lanka - New Zealand. This could change if New Zealand beat Australia in the game on the 20th, but it is not likely.



It is going to be difficult for people to make big changes in position at this point with so few games remaining. A lot of people have saved trades for the final games, it will be interesting to see how much of a difference this makes. The Sri lanka - Ireland game has just started, which could be an interesting one.

Talk to you this evening,
Ciao,
Michael

Australia look unbeatable

Hi all,

We got back from our trip to see the cricket last night. We had a great time. It was fun, even the bad games were fun to watch after not seeing cricket for 10 years. It reminded me of going with the family to see games at the Wanderers when I was a kid. Katy was getting into the games too. She can now yell the right things at the right times at the right people for the right reasons.

Henry had the best day today with Ponting as his captain. Australia made easy work of Sri Lanka, and I'm not sure who is going to be able to stop them. Here is the worm.



On the last day when South Africa came out to warm up I managed to get Jonty Rhodes' autograph!! Here it is, on my hat. I asked him why he wasn't playing anymore. He said it was too tiring. I gather he does lots of surfing now.



Here are a couple of other photos from the West Indies - South Africa game, which was the best game we saw while we were there. The first is a panorama of the whole stadium. Click on it to see it bigger.



The second picture is of Kallis hitting a four over mid off.



The South Africa - England game will decide who the forth team is that will go through to the semi finals. Keep your fingers crossed for your favorite team.

Ciao,
Michael

So South Africa look even more silly now, after Ireland defeated Bangladesh yesterday. The Irish won a match which was very important to them, their own little world cup final...

Few people had any players in yesterday's match, but those who did have done well for themselves. Missy has caught up with Sarah and they are now tied for second place. While Janet has overtaken Lynda for that 7th place position. Graeme also did well yesterday. Boyd Rankin did well to increase my lead a little :)

Today's match should be a good one between Sri and Australia.

Speaks Soon,
Paul

This is Catherine saying 'Hello' from sunny England. Paul has asked me to do the blog today as he is packing to go back to university. It was fun watching yesterday's match on TV after having watched the previous two weeks' matches as text on the cric info website. Some of the commentary was excellent and very funny.

So what happened to South Africa yesterday?? Moira is very cross with Graeme Smith - being caught out in the first few overs was quite awful and then losing AB was a serious blow. Kallis went next and I wondered whether they could ever recover from such a bad start. Ended up, they couldn't. Taking singles seemed to be the strategy from then on (which I had advised from my armchair) was a good plan but every time they went for a big hit, they went out. New Zealand seemed nearly as arrogant in victory as Aus usually does - and can you blame them!

Let's have a look at the worm.

Paul is gloating about his position (yes, I can confirm that!). Sarah has made good progress. I had Styris and Gibbs so thought I had an advantage but found that Paul had them as well! Now South Africa are on a sticky wicket (that was good blogging wasn't it) and a lot will depend on how SA and England fare in their match - Moira says she is not even going to watch - way too stressful! I will be shouting for Michael Vaughan to DO SOMETHING USEFUL for a change.

Does anyone care about today's match between Ireland and Bangladesh? I personally don't although it may end up being a really exciting one since they may be more well matched. Have to stop blogging as Paul wants to pack his computer and he is unplugging things even as we speak. So good luck an have a gre......

So Australia destroyed Ireland today, managing to wrap things up by lunch time. They looked like they were on good form today, almost unstoppable.

Nothing significant happened today as even those of us with Australians didn't score high because of the low total they had to get. And Hayden didn't get to bat. Henry and Lynda each gained a place today.

So Michael and Katy's last game today, South Africa vs. New Zealand, it should be a close game, lets home neither of the sides fall apart (SA).

Cya Soon,
Paul

A Comment from the new member.

Today we have a video blog from Joseph, he is obviously part of our family as he has learnt how to use youtube at only 2 weeks and 5 days old.





So there we have it, an obvious prediction that South Africa will win.
New Zealand faced their first defeat today as Sri Lanka's bowling attack prevented any real partnerships from forming.

The worms.

I have had to make the table wider so as to fit everything on, so if it is unreadable, click on it and it should give you a bigger picture.

So many people gaining today, it seems Scott Styris was the person to have with his century. Sandi made very good gains today with her Sri Lankan side.

Ireland vs. Australia tomorrow, I say go Ireland!

Boooooorrrrriiiiinnnnnngggg

Hi there everyone,

Did you see us in the crowd? We were in the front row at the bottom right in line with the wicket opposite the main score board. Saturday we will be in the front in the first section on the right (as you look at it) of the scoreboard/grass, near the bottom.

What a boring game today also, I'm glad Katy saw a real game the other day. New Zealand started out badly and it just got worse. They lost too many wickets too soon and then never started to hit out to try and get at least 250. Then when they started bowling, it was all over the place and they gave away 17 runs in the first few overs, 14 of which were extras!! Sri Lanka could then just coast along getting singles every now and again and so the whole afternoon was pretty boring. But a boring cricket game in Grenada is better than no boring cricket game not in Grenada.

People here are very friendly and we are making lots of "friends". The food is good but very expensive. Yesterday we walked around the town of St George and saw what few sights they have. It is like a small European town with narrow cobbled streets all set at San Francisco street angles. I think they go through lots of clutches here. The town is pretty though and quite fun to wander around.

So far we have purchased the second and third place prizes for the competition. Second place is a cricket ball with the World Cup logo on it and third place is a cap in the West Indies colors with the World Cup logo. We are trying to get a nice shirt for the first place prize.

We also have a small (6 inch) bat that we can use as part of the floating trophy to be awarded every 4 years. (It will be called the Sweaty Robinson World Cup Trophy of Honour and Stuff.) If we see any players we will try and get stuff autographed.

Love,
Michael and Katy

I Think I Fell Asleep

So England managed victory today. There are not enough adverbs in the English language to describe how boring it was though. They seemed to be in an excellent position after bowling Bangladesh out for 143, yet they took much longer than Bangladesh to get the runs. It took them 7 overs to get the last 8 runs, half of which were eventually byes. They went for periods of 23 balls without scoring a run and periods of 10 overs without scoring a boundary. It was to say the least, unconvincing.

Anyway enough of that, they still won which puts them in close competition with South Africa to get that 4th place for the semi finals. The match to watch will be SA vs. Eng which will probably decide who goes through. Awesome.

The worm...

So as everyone has lost faith in the English squad over the past few weeks, not much happened in terms of the worm today. The only significant increase came from Sarah who is now tied with Missy for 2nd place. Many people received zero today, but I feel tomorrows match should be a better one.

Sri Lanka play New Zealand tomorrow, and it should be a very good match up as they are both excellent teams. Michael and Katy should be in for a great game once again, I'll be watching for them in the crowd today again!

Bye for now,
Paul

Not a cricket virgin anymore

Well I have survived my first day of live cricket. What fun it was. The day began with a fortunate travellers stop at the local donut shop. The woman there pointed us to the free shuttle - much better than taking the public bus to the game. Once there we discovered that our seats were in the nice covered section!! Yeah! We had shade all day. We made friends with the West Indian fans around us and were all set for a day of cricket. The highlights were: Watching Gibbs smack an absolute cracker of a straight drive right into a window to earn him his 50 (I think that he needs to sign it for posterity's sake, Boucher earned 50 in 22 balls, Kallis's first wicket with bails flying, de Villiers hanging in for 146 with a pulled muscle in his leg, Michael liked the square drive from Lara, and finally seeing the West Indian bowlers having a go at batting- our friends in the crowd are logging a request to have the batting order reversed. All in all it was quite fun and as Michael said, "we saw a fair bit of cricket there!"

We have been scoping out possible prizes and Moira you should not worry - I think we have a great one for the back of the packs "Golden Duck Award". Today we are off to explore town and see if we can bump into any players at the beach. Katy

SA back on form leads to some big jumps in the table

Well, South Africa did much better today, everyone in the batting line up scored at over 100% strike rate, except for Boucher who scored at over 200%! Was incredible to watch and I hope if you didn't watch it you got to see some highlights. West Indies scored at a much better rate than South Africa did in the beginning overs, but lost too many wickets while doing it and so it was not to be for them.

It seems like almost everyone had a very good day today! Graeme and Moira putting in a good effort to catch up with the rest of the pack. Janet and Lynda have also made good advances up the pack, scoring more than others in their areas. But... What is going on with Michael, it's as if he got double points for being at the match. Obviously he wasn't joking when he said his team was heavy on the South African. I hope they enjoyed the match very much! It would have been an excellent first match to see for Katy.

Today I include a picture of the fielding placements for any of you who are listening to or reading commentary and are not sure what they're talking about when they say they've "hit the ball over mid wicket" or where "long off" is.

Click on the picture to make it bigger if you wish :)

Ciao for now :)

Elimination

So Ireland are out of the running for the semi-finals with a bludgeoning defeat at the hands of New Zealand. Ireland have done impressively well for a country I didn't know played cricket until a few weeks ago.

Table...

Well we can tell who the New Zealand fans are here! Missy takes over the top spot by one point after today's match. This is only temporary however... In my humble opinion. My humble opinion is what everyone receives, free of charge, because I get to write this :)
Catherine is also looking up after that excellent NZ performance.

Hopefully Michael and Katy have an excellent time at the cricket tomorrow and that there is a close game, which SA win.

ttyl

Woohoo, hot and sweaty in Grenada

Hi all, Katy gets the hot and sweaty award for being hot and sweaty, sunscreen is melting off into her eyes as we speak. Grenada is very nice , people are friendly and the food is good, if a bit pricey. We havent found a good bar yet to watch the cricket in on the off days but I have managed to get a Pina Colada on the beach. Hmmmmmm.

The big news is that we saw all of the SA team at the local supermarket, in the crips and beer aisle no less, which explains a few things. We were too star struck to do much of anything other than wander around and stare. A couple of locals were getting Pollock to sign their shirts. I wanted katy to ask Gibbs if he was gonna play tomorrow, coz otherwise we will have to trade him off the team. She wouldn't do it.

We have spotted plenty of NZ fans around and a few SA and SL ones. There were lots of people playing cricket on the beach which reminded me of family holidays when I was a kid. We are off to cool off in the pool, and we will try and post a post after the game tomorrow.

Keep well,
Michael and Katy.

Good effort, but not good enough...

England created a very good chance for themselves today with excellent batting from Bell and Pieterson. However the side was let down by the rest of the line up as nobody was able to create any big partnerships down the order. And maybe someone should throw Vaughan in the rubbish because he certainly plays cricket with a similar degree of skill. Without further adieu here are the standings..

Things are certainly beginning to hot up around the top of the table with excellent results from Missy and Sarah. Close but no cigar however :). Henry made a good attempt at overtaking the mid section, while Graeme obviously had the disadvantage of the english speaking nations playing.

Ireland and New Zealand are playing tomorrow, should be another one sided affair, but you never know in this day and age. See you all tomorrow for another bout of Picket, thats.. Paul Cricket.

South Africa Shocker

Well South Africa have managed to provide an unimaginable yet inevitable shock to the world cup. They have lost to Bangladesh in awesome style, it was not even close. I did not see the game, but the score card said it all. South Africa have moved down from the number 1 rank in ODI cricket to number two after this defeat.

Unfortunately the worm has not been updated yet as the new scores are not on the site. I will post the new worm up tomorrow at some point, although Graeme looks to score well with the Ms today.

EDIT: Here's the chart...

Michael and Graeme each did well today, Graeme because of the M's and Michael because of the South Africans. As everyone can see, I did particularly well today, lets hope it stays that way.

Very Happy Easter to everyone, and I hope everyone gets a lot of points in the near future.

We are off to Grenada tomorrow.

Katy and I are flying tomorrow (Saturday) evening to Grenada to watch the world cup. 3 days of cricket mixed with 3 days of lying on the beach. In the interim Paul will be updating the blog and continuing to foster the worm. We will post stuff from Grenada if we find an internet connection, but if not, we will give a full report when we get back.

The games are also on a break for a few days as you may have noticed. They resume tomorrow with South Africa playing Bangladesh. Let us hope South Africa bats first so Kallis can get me some runs already.

Ciao,
Michael

Nail biting finish

Well, Paul keeps his lead with a narrow margin. Sarah, Missy and Katy are very close behind. What can be deduced from the graph is that Sandi must have a team of all Sri Lankans. Every time they play she takes a big jump. I can only guess she thinks they will win the World Cup. Sandi gets the sneaky sweaty Sri Lankan badge of honour for blind faith in a team from the sub continent.

Graeme has made his team anonymous, and today he got some points. I think his team is now anonymous because he has a player whose name starts with an N or a Q or a B or something else non M like.

The other interesting thing is that Catherine went down. Katy said she should have dropped her English players. Katy says last time the British performed this badly the United States got independence!



Oh ya, the nail biting finish. Sri Lanka was playing England and I wish I had watched the game. Everyone thought Sri Lanka had the game in the bag but England clawed their way back into contention. It came down to England requiring two runs off the last ball when Sri Lanka bowled the batsman out. You do not get much closer than that. Paul was quite tense when I chatted to him online after the game.

Hope everyone is doing well,
Ciao,
Michael

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I (Katy) have been tasked to do the blog this evening while Michael does the dishes - seems like a fair trade to me. First, here's the worm:

So as you can see Paul made a huge leap today. Really the only reason is coz Kallis is his captain. Michael made a huge leap as well but he is still in the middle of the pack so who cares. (love you sweety) Honestly though, the only real news from the day came from Kallis, Ireland didn't put up much of a fight and so Kallis didn't have to do much but he did enough. The "you picked the right captain right away" award goes to Paul, well done! Michael gets the "you FINALLY picked the right captain" award. I am hoping to steal this from him but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Current Super Eight standings are as follows:
AUS 6 points
NZL 6 points
SRI 4 points
RSA 4 points
ENG 2 points
WIN 2 points
IRE 0 points
BAN 0 points

So, there are a few teams that need to pick up the pace a little if they want a shot at the semi-finals. Tomorrow England will take on Sri Lanka, should be a good match and a win for England would go a long way. I'll be tied to the stats while my students watch a video. YES! Back by popular demand...its the "push play" lesson plan!!!

Only 4 more wake-ups till we head to Granada.

Enjoy the Game! Katy

Everyone wants to be second.

Hi peoples,

It looks like everyone wants to be in second place. Missy, Catherine, Katy and Paul are all converging on the same score. Janet had another good day putting her close to the top six. Lynda jumped back ahead of Henry and the rest or us are resting our weary cricket player trading brains.



New Zealand crushed Bangladesh. Styris got 4 wickets, so well done all you Styris pickers and Flemming scored 100+ and some of you had him too.

Tomorrow is Ireland vs South Africa. Ireland gave South Africa a run for their money in the warm up round so let us hope South Africa do well and get the points they need. Well, OK, so I want South Africa to do well. Is anyone shouting for anyone else in this competition?

Janet, your worm could be worse, it could be all pale and pasty like Graeme's. Oh, and Missy, its not too late to dump Graeme Smith.

Here is a little cricket lesson courtesy of Borat.

Ciao,
Michael

Mossies fly up.

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the next edition of the Robinson World Cup Blog. I just said that to pad the blog so that it doesn't look like I have nothing to say. OK, enough chit chat, here is the worm.



Sandi made a huge, and anonymous jump today, but one suspects she may have Jayasuraya as her captain. Other people with the big J-man were Henry and Missy, who despite my best coaching, keeps picking winners. Sarah is keeping her distance, while Henry has broken into the top 6. Well done. The doing stupid sweaty stuff without thinking because you are a moron award of the lame duck goes to me today because I traded away Chanderpaul right before the game, rather than waiting until after. Would it have cost me anything to wait? No! But I did it anyway.

The Windies are not looking good at the moment. They were beaten pretty easily by Sri Lanka today. The Sri Lankan batting was a lot of fun to watch, with a lot of classic cricket shots being hit. Jayasuraya is definitely a stylish player. I had to turn it off, though, when the West Indians started to not bat.

Have a peachy day,
Michael