Alas

World Cup blogging on this site has been light to non-existent over the last week. Alas, the interminable nature of the Super 8 got to me. The inevitable has of course happened, and the four semi-finalists are Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa, as looked obvious about three games into the Super Eight. The story of the tournament (from a cricketing point of view, at least) has really been just how unbelievably bad the supposedly "good" teams outside that list of four have been. India and Pakistan failed to make the super eight. The West Indies and England did make the super eight, but since doing so have managed to play so unspeakably badly that I suspect they almost wished they had gone home early. England's fans must be suicidal this morning after this debacle. (On the other hand, any England fans who genuinely were suicidal are probably long dead). The Guardian's over by over commentary is, however, hilarious, if not quite up to the standard of the Guardian's legendary greatest ever commentary.

Compliments to the four teams who have made the semi-finals though. All four have played good to excellent cricket, most consistently the Australians and least consistently the South Africans. I will be blogging properly again in the approach to the semi finals and final, as a minimum.