Farveez Maharoof takes a heap of wickets

Farveez Maharoof took 6-14 for Sri Lanka today. The West Indies were all out for just 80 and Sri Lanka lost just the one wicket in overtaking that. It was pretty one-sided. No, it was massively one-sided.

6-14's really something. It was a slow wicket and it sounds like he just positioned men for the drive and then persistently landed the ball on the spot with a bit of seam movement. Easy.

Actually, it's not easy. It's simple. There's a difference.

Chaminda Vaas's day

Chaminda Vaas is a weird bowler. He's your archetypal consistent medium-pacer these days. He's not too tall, he's not too fast, he doesn't do a great deal with the ball, but he's accurate. He's not all that, really. Then every now and again, conditions are in his favour and he's absolutely unplayable.

He was rather overshadowed by Farveez Maharoof today, but really it was Vaas who set things in motion. As an opening bowler, he sets the tone. Look at his figures: 2-6 off six overs. That's not very one-day international, is it?

Other Chaminda Vaas days have been the day when he took 8-19 against Zimbabwe - the only time anyone's ever taken eight wickets in a one-dayer. There was also the day when he took a hat trick with his first three balls against Bangladesh in the World Cup. Good days. Days that anyone would look back on with pride.

Chaminda Vaas is tremendously sunblock-happy at times.

Stephen Fleming stands alone

Not like a loser. Like a winner.

New Zealand beat South Africa, despite only making 195. South Africa did a Zimbabwe/West Indies/England and crumbled to 108 all out.

This Champions' Trophy's harking back to a low-scoring era of one-dayers that we thought was long gone. India tradionally produces high-scoring matches too. It's strangely refreshing.

New Zealand's win would have been impossible without the original captain's contribution from Stephen Fleming. He hit 89. Only his opposite number Graeme Smith, with 42 and Justin Kemp with 26 not out, even approached respectability with the bat - from either side. Kyle Mills took 3-18 and Jeetan Patel took 3-11, both for New Zealand.

Once again we've included a photo of Stephen Fleming with his flesh on display. He's not at all shy about brandishing those shoulders, the hussy.

Abdul Razzaq three days ago

This is the problem with doing a news site and not being around to cover the news: Either you ignore the news and are run off the internet on a railroad for not keeping up or you cover the news and it's dated when you post it.

And if you're us and still persevering with free software because you're such a cheapskate, you probably won't be able to publish the old news anyway because the free software's nads.

Abdul Razzaq did Abdul Razzaq things again. People swooned. 4-50 and 38 off 24 balls.

You all know this already. Really we're only publishing this so that we can get annoyed when it says 'no post data found' or something and we can once again feel our heart beating, thus proving our continued existence.

Australia two days ago

This is almost news. In the days before the internet, if you didn't get a Sunday paper, you might have to wait until Monday to find out scores. This is only as bad as that, although most of you will probably be reading this on Monday, in which case this post has no value - particularly when you consider what follows.

Australia lost a one-day game. We find that it's a wise idea to apply to the one-day arena the rules you used for England's Test team ten years ago. Namely, don't boast about Australian defeats, because England are probably going to get hammered tomorrow.

What's that? England ARE playing Australia tomorrow. Well there you go. Keep quiet (for now).

Jerome Taylor's hat trick

We didn't really know much about Jerome Taylor before this. We like his style though: A hat trick against Australia with the match in the balance.

Fast bowling's back in fashion.

Damien Martyn fails to see what all the fuss is about

People batted. People got out. There were precious few runs and they came slowly and attritionally. Except for Damien Martyn, who flicked the ball about like a man playing a familiar computer game on 'easy'.

Damien Martyn has always been a class act, but England fans shouldn't worry. He has an amazing knack for getting himself out in the most surprising and innocuous ways in Tests. It's the price he pays for being able to see into people's souls.

A B de Villiers hits a fifty

A B de Villiers hit 54 for South Africa against Sri Lanka. No-one else passed fifty, so we're singling him out.

A lot of people are pretty turned off by the low scores in this Champions' Trophy, but we're finding it refreshing. Quite often there'll be one batsmen who makes a score and the remainder won't get out of single figures. Are the batsmen who prosper better-equipped? Maybe there's a wealth of flat-track bullies in international cricket these days due to the better pitches. Perhaps they're all being found out in more testing conditions.

Either way, certain batsmen are adapting and the majority aren't. A B de Villiers is a canny sort of batsman and he did enough yesterday. He's been opener, wicketkeeper and batted just about everywhere for South Africa. He's clearly a flexible sort of a bloke and that's doubtless his strength in testing conditions.

Chaminda Vaas knows something about bowling that most people don't know - we don't know what it is though

Sri Lanka lost, but it wasn't Chaminda Vaas's fault. He took 2-16 off all ten of his overs and was left stranded, 29 not out as Sri Lanka's batsmen captiulated.

We're just thinking that Chaminda Vaas must be approaching world authority status when it comes to bowling on slow subcontinental pitches. There have been other bowlers, like Wasim Akram, who've bowled well on these sorts of tracks, but no-one who's actually preferred them other than Vaas.

Next time we're called upon to remove a well-set batsman in Jaipur, we're going to ask Chaminda Vaas what to do.

Shane Bond flies the flag

With Shoaib Akhtar potentially banned and Steve Harmison spraying the ball about with reckless abandon, we need every fast bowler we can get.

Fortunately Shane Bond's still flying the flag. He touched-up the lowest ever bowling average in one-day internationals by taking 3-45. Crucially, he removed Mohammad Yousuf for 71 and the dangerous Abdul Razzaq shortly after.

That's two games in a row that Shane Bond's played now. It must be some sort of a record. They should LITERALLY wrap him up in cotton wool between matches. He shouldn't be allowed cutlery to eat with either. You never know.

Makhaya Ntini does some strike bowling

We forgot about Makhaya Ntini when we said that Shane Bond was flying the fast bowling flag the other day. Give the flag to Makhaya, Shane.

We became an Ntini convert in April when he seemed to have completed the transition into a fully-fledged strike bowler. He took five wickets in five overs today utterly demolishing Pakistan. It was clearly Ridiculous Pakistan who had turned up, as opposed to Sublime Pakistan, but still. Well played that man.

Pakistan were all out for 89. Earlier in the day South Africa were 42-5, so it was quite a comeback to post 213 and then defend it with ease. It partially vindicated their policy of batting down to number nine. Although as we see it, Ntini's performance vindicated the policy of selecting your best bowlers.

Damien Martyn again

Australia knocked India out of the Champions' Trophy yesterday. We watched most of India's innings and they never really got going. You always thought that 249 probably wouldn't be enough. And it wasn't.

Australia chased it down with no real difficulty. Again, the top-scorer was Damien Martyn with 73 not out. We've never watched Damien Martyn bat in a situation where we weren't desperate for him to get out, so we've never really appreciated his style. We're dimly aware that he's 'classy', but we usually overlook that and just call him names whenever he's on TV.

Earlier, Glenn McGrath bowled his first four overs for just four runs and although he was still a bit pedestrian, Aussie fans shouldn't worry about the guy. There's definitely no danger of his being dropped for Nathan Bracken.

Kevin Pietersen times his innings to perfection

What was the likelihood that we'd start this post with "England won a game!"? It was distinctly likely until we decided on the 'starting with writing about about what we were likely to start with' approach.

Anyway, as we were saying, England won a game! Which was a massive relief more than anything. We're not sure just how much one-day misery we can take. Sport becomes boring when it's predictable and that's the way things were heading.

You'd have to say that Kevin Pietersen's was the only stand-out performance from an England perspective. They bowled adequately and being as they only managed four wickets, it's a surprise that the Windies only scored what they did. England's openers, Strauss and Bell, again did a decent job and we're fairly convinced that they've got it in them to be a useful partnership, although more likely Trescothick will return as opener and Bell will bat at three. But mostly it was Pietersen.

Pietersen hung around a bit, played in a relatively reserved fashion for the majority of his innings and then went for it as the overs ran out. England won, so it's hard to fault him.

There's all sorts of talk about his aggressive approach being the downfall of him when the Ashes come, but we think that that's to undervalue his thinking. He often attacks only to change a fielding side's approach. If he feels in danger at some point, rather than ride it out, he sets out to do something about it himself.

Doubtless, he'll get out through this at some point and the critics will be onto him, but there'll be other occasions where more reactive batsmen would perish and Pietersen's proactive approach will be his salvation. What we'd like to see is him playing aggressively to put the field back and then batting a long, long time.

Stephen Fleming stands with Scott Styris

Previously Stephen Fleming stood alone. As New Zealand did away with Pakistan to reach the semi-finals of the Champions' Trophy, he instead stood with Scott Styris. Runs are at a premium in this tournament and Stephen Fleming's one of the few batsmen pulling his weight.

Stephen Fleming hit 80. Scott Styris hit 86. We don't particularly rate Scott Styris, but we're not too proud to change our mind about these things and runs like these will help his cause.

Chris Gayle hits his third hundred of the tournament

He's going okay, Chris Gayle: Three hundreds in seven innings. He's always had the ability to get an innings off to a flyer, but he's not stopping there at the minute. He and Shivnarine Chanderpaul seem to be making a rather handy opening partnership.

He bowls as well. He must be up there with the best one-day players around. He's taken 126 one-day international wickets at 31.89, which is no small amount. His one-day international batting average is 40.13 with 15 hundreds and he's an opener. That compares favourably with anyone.

Yesterday he hit 133 not out off 135 balls as the West Indies booked their place in the final of the Champions' Trophy. They're an increasingly handy outfit the Windies. They've got a couple of maturing bowlers who are taking the pressure off the batsmen. The West Indies have always had a decent batting line-up. They've just had a tendency to fold under pressure. Less pressure - less folding.

West Indies collapse massively in Champions' Trophy final

That's pretty much all there is to say. Australia won the Champions' Trophy and now no-one cares again. It's very 'of the moment' the Champions' Trophy. We actually quite enjoyed it in the end, mostly because all the big nations are in one place at once and it would be hard for that not to be a big deal. As soon as it's finished though, it's forgotten.

Shane Watson saw Australia home with the only fifty of the match. The Tonk, on the Sydney Morning Herald site, described Watson as 'a raving metrosexual' the other day. We've always been a bit creeped out by his albino looks. He doesn't have eyelashes or something weird and his eyes are too blue.

England win Alternative Test Cricket World Championship bout

We only realised last week. England are now the Alternative Test Cricket World Champions. Pakistan were champions. England beat them in a Test series, so now England are champions. Let's all celebrate with a cup of tea and a bit of a read about cricket.

This also means that the Ashes is also an Alternative Test Cricket World Championship bout. It's okay to start talking about the Ashes now because, you know, there's only the Champions Trophy in between now and then.

Does the title Champions' Trophy imply that everyone's a champion. It's like being crap at sport at school again: Everyone's a winner. Even Fat Kid.

"Well played Fat Kid. Just how did you give yourself internal haemorraging during rounders, incidentally?"

This post looks bare. We need an Alternative Test Cricket World Championship emblem or something.