It was all set up for a memorable St Patrick's Day celebration but it has all gone wrong. Wales ended Ireland's long unbeaten run at rugby in Cardiff whilst in Adelaide, the gallant cricket squad lost the winner-goes-through encounter with Pakistan. Nobody could offer any support for centurion Will Porterfield, leaving a fairly simple target of 238. Keeper Sarfraz Ahmed's maiden hundred ensured there would be no collapse and victory cam with almost for over to spare.
With the West Indies making light work of the United Arab Emirates, Ireland went out on net run rate despite beating the Windies earlier in the tournament. Despite outperforming Zimbabwe in the 2015 World Cup, presumably the ICC will prevent the Irish from building on their minor successes in global tournaments by persisting with the blinkered, brain-dead proposal of keeping the Associate nations out in 2018. Of course if the sport's rulers had gone for an eight team World Cup based on 2015 group positions, there would be no place for England! Then I suspect there would have been a definite re-think!
Nevertheless after 42 matches, we now enter the knockout phase where anything can happen. The first quarter-final on Wednesday is perhaps the hardest to call. South Africa, with AB De Villiers at his outrageous best, have been piling on huge totals despite losing early wickets but Sri Lanka can never be ruled out. However, surely not even Kumar Sangakkara can score hundreds in every match, and if Morne Morkel and Imran Tahir keep applying the screw and taking wickets, AB's men ought to win.
Bangladesh have so far done everything asked of them, with just one defeat (to Sri Lanka), the big scalp of England and an excellent fight against table-toppers New Zealand. Normally they are super-reliant on all-rounder Shakib-al Hasan but in the group stage they have owed a lot to Mahmudullah's two centuries and Mushfiqur Rahim's consistency. Nevertheless they now face a confident Indian side. Shikhar Dhawan is back in form, supported by Kohli and Raina but even more impressive has been the bowling unit. Mohammed Shami has 15 cheap wickets but Ashwin, Sharma and Yadav have all been in the mix, too. As a result they ought to make the semis at least.
Pakistan have qualified by the back door but Australia should underestimate them at their peril. Wahab Riaz has looked dangerous and Misbah-ul-Haq is always difficult to remove. The Aussies haven't dominated the run charts either, but one of their matches was rained off. Glenn Maxwell's strike rate of almost 200 is their most eye-catching statistic, and Mitchell Starc's 6-28 against New Zealand is the second-best bowling performance of the tournament to date. With Michael Clarke back in the saddle and such formidable batsmen as Finch and Warner, not to mention a partisan Adelaide crowd, Australia must be the hot favourites.
Most impressive team must be New Zealand. The co-hosts have exploited the swing-friendly conditions to perfection, and Trent Boult and Tim Southee were unplayable against England. Daniel Vettori has marked his return to the big time by taking more wickets than any other spinner with an economy rate second to none. Their opponents at Wellington, the West Indies will need to practise against swing this week if they are to stand a chance against the Black Caps. A runfest is unlikely and, assuming Chris Gayle isn't allowed to rack up the sixes, you'd fancy Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor or Cory Anderson to achieve any target batting second.
The form book says a semi-final line-up of India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa but don't rule out a Caribbean cracker!
