There will have been an air of doom and gloom around much of Melbourne today. It is a sports-mad city (with certain honorable exceptions, some of whom read this blog) and there are few things that Melbourne sports fans hate more than being beaten by people from Sydney.

And not just beaten either. The Victoria Bushrangers were thoroughly humiliated. NSW Blues batted first and despite the supposed horrors of the Delhi pitch they raced along at almost 9 an over throughout. David Warner top-scored with 48 off 25 balls, but the whole batting order contributed to their final score of 169.

In contrast the Victorian batting was woeful. Brett Lee took 2-15 and Moises Henriques 3-11 as the Bushrangers were skittled out for just 90. Oh dear.

Personally I blame Justine. I’m sure she managed to find a way to cheat.

Today the Cape Cobras take on Trinidad & Tobago. Hopefully it will be a much better game. Everyone outside South Africa will be hoping for a T&T win because they are such wonderful fin to watch.

I said yesterday that I didn’t expect any miracles from Somerset today, but equally I didn’t expect a disaster. Their match against NSW was one of the most one-sided in the tournament. Somerset batted first and managed only 111, with Stuart Clark taking 3-15. It took the Australians only 12 of their 20 overs to win the game.

I caught a little bit of the TV coverage and the Australian commentators were laughing themselves silly. Both Australian teams are in the semi-finals, and the two English teams between them managed only one win. Doubtless most English supporters will say this was inevitable given the poor quality of the teams we sent. Their counties would of course have done better. Yet Somerset were second in the Twenty20, second in the Pro40, and third in the County Championship. Sussex won the Twenty20 and Pro40, and were second in the 50 over cup. In England they had been pretty dominant. Asked to step out onto the world stage, both sides were outclassed. Questions ought to be asked of the ECB, I think.

In stark contrast the Trinidad & Tobago team were anything but outclassed. On the same wicket were Somerset had managed only 11, they smashed their way to 213, the highest score of the tournament so far. To get into the semi finals the Eagles needed not only to surpass that, but to do so by a significant margin in order to improve their net run rate. It was never going to happen, though they made a brave attempt.

The semi-final line-ups are now almost complete. The matches will probably be Cape Cobras v NSW and Trinidad & Tobago v Victoria, though that does assume that the Cobras beat Delhi in the final second round match tomorrow. The Cobras and T&T are both undefeated, and I’m expecting a titanic final if they stay that way through the semis.

India is in the midst of Diwali, the Festival of Lights, which is celebrated by Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains as well as Hindus. The Champions’ League matches today provided a few fireworks to help the holiday along, but not before there were fears if fireworks of entirely the wrong kind.

We began the day with a match between the Cape Cobras and Victoria Bushrangers. The match was delayed by a bomb scare at the stadium. The Indian police reportedly detected traces of explosives on the kit bag of a young Kashmiri player who was taking part in an Under-22 tournament at the ground. The players were kept in their hotels until the ground had been checked, though apparently the crowd was let in.

After almost 2 hours delay the game got underway, but the stress had clearly told on the players. Cobras star Herschelle Gibbs declined to play, saying he didn’t feel mentally up to it, while the Victorian openers minds also seemed to be elsewhere as both of them were dismissed for 0 in the first over by Monde Zondeki. Victoria’s innings never recovered, and they posted only 129 in a game reduced to 17 overs a side. The strong Cobras batting lineup had no difficulty reaching that target.

The second game of the day saw the home team, Bangalore, take on Delhi. The result of the first game meant that Bangalore could no longer qualify for the semi-finals, but that didn’t stop them wanting to get one over on their local rivals in front of a massive holiday crowd.

Sehwag got the Daredevils off to their usual flying start, but when he was out (for 47 off 29 balls) the Delhi innings began to stagnate. Bangalore captain, Anil Kumble, who was celebrating his birthday, took 3-20 off his four overs. In the end Delhi struggled to 138.

In contract the Bangalore innings got off to a slow start, but with two wickets down Ross Taylor and Rahul Dravid began to turn the game around. Taylor scored a rapid-fire 65 off only 38 balls. By the time he was out the game was all but over. With five overs to play Bangalore needed just 6 runs to win and Dravid, a man known as “The Wall” because of his defensive style of play, celebrated by smashing the very next ball back over the bowler’s head and into the crowd.

Today’s games sealed the fates of all of the teams in League B. Cape Town and Victoria go through to the semi-finals. The Cobras still have a game against Delhi to play, and they will want to top the group, but even if they lose they are guaranteed the second-best record.

League A will be decided tomorrow. Trinidad & Tobago are best placed, and will top the group if they beat the Eagles, but they will probably be OK if they lose a close one. They will also know what they need to do, because they play second. The first match is Somerset v NSW. My boys are not quite out of the tournament. A convincing win over the Australians, plus a win by T&T, might just see them through on net run rate. However, the NSW side is very good so I’m not expecting a miracle.

Wrote this last night and forgot to publish it. Sorry.

It has been a mixed day at the Champions’ League. The day started with Somerset putting up a woeful performance against the Eagles. Having won the toss and elected to bat, they were quickly reduced to 52/5 in nine overs. James Hildreth and Wes Durston heroically put on 73 for the next wicket, but they were unable to accelerate at the end and the Somerset innings finished on 132/8. It was well short of a winning score, and the Eagles knocked off the runs fairly comfortably.

The other game in League A was between NSW and Trinidad & Tobago. The Australians batted first and looked very good. David Warner (63) and Phil Hughes (83) got them off to a superb start, and their score of 170 appeared very challenging. However, nothing scares this West Indian side. Even after losing their first three wickets for just 30, they kept fighting. The required run rate was up to almost 12 at times, but with Kieron Pollard at the wicket anything is possible. He finished up with 54* off just 18 balls, including five 6s. If T&T keep on playing like this they can beat anyone.

Tomorrow we have the Cape Cobras taking on the Victoria Bush Rangers, and Bangalore v Delhi.

I’m a bit late with a report on yesterday’s Champions’ League action for reasons that will become obvious in the next post. Apologies for that.

It was a must-win game for Bangalore yesterday. They carried no points through from the first round — their only win having been against Otago who are eliminated. Victoria, on the other hand, have points from their win over Delhi. The Indian side started very well, with Manish Pandey looking particularly impressive. However, Bangalore were without their star player, Jacques Kallis, because of an injury, and once wickets started to fall their run rate slumped. Andy MacDonald took an excellent 4-21 for Victoria, and Bangalore finished on a mere 127. Given that they had been 72/2 after 10 overs, this was very poor.

And so it proved. Victoria cruised to victory by 7 wickets with 25 balls to spare. David Hussey finished the match in emphatic style, clobbering Anil Kumble for three 6s in one over. So Victoria now have 4 points with a game to play and look pretty certain to get a semi-final slot. Bangalore are probably out of it, but they do have a game against Delhi to come and I’m sure they’ll be keen to win that one.

Somerset’s next game is due to start in about half an hour. They will have to do without their star batsman, Marcus Trescothick, who has flown home with a re-occurrence of the illness that has kept him out of the England side for several years.

Well, actually by Trinidad and Tobago.

In the final game of the first round of the Champions’ League the Deccan Chargers won the toss and elected to field. Trinidad & Tobago scored 149, which was about the sort of score that would produce a close match. So it proved.

The Chargers started off well thanks to a typically brilliant 51 of 36 balls by their skipper, Adam Gilchrist (though he did come within a whisker of being out twice in the first over). However, both Gilchrist and Rohit Sharma, who were going very well, were out soon after the half way point. Scott Styris and Venugopal Rao then looked to have the game under control, only for both to fall quickly. By now the Chargers were reliant on their bowlers to make the winning runs, and so the target became much harder. With one over to go they needed 8 to win, and Dwayne Bravo was much too good for them, though the result was technically in doubt right down to the final ball.

It is a real shame for the Chargers. They have played two games and lost them by 1 wicket and by 3 runs. That will be tough to take. On the other hand, Trinidad & Tobago played very well, and because of the victory Somerset are through to the next round. Here are the two groups:

League 1: NSW, Trinidad & Tobago, Somerset, Bloemfontein.

League 2: Cape Town, Delhi, Bangalore, Victoria.

Points are carried through from the previous round, so the teams with two victories — NSW, Trinidad & Tobago and Cape Town — will be the favorites to make the semi finals. Each team will play only two matches — against the teams they haven’t faced before. Tomorrow the Bush Rangers go to Bangalore to face the Royal Challengers. And on Friday Somerset play the Bloemfontein Eagles. Thankfully we are not playing either of our two games on the horrid Delhi pitch.

The low, slow wicket in Delphi might not produce the sort of batting fireworks that the media might have hoped, but that doesn’t mean it can’t produce interesting matches. Today we had two very close games.

The day began with Victoria against Wayamba. The Sri Lankans batted first and made 119, which seemed like it probably wasn’t enough. However, they bowled very well, and apart from Brad Hodge none of the Bushrangers batsmen could come to terms with the wicket. Fortunately for Victoria, they only needed to get to 84, because if they did that they were guaranteed to go through to the next round on net run rate. As it turned out, they only got 103. Wayamba can take home the consolation of having won a game, but their tournament is over.

The second game of the day was a straight eliminator between Sussex Sharks and Bloemfontein Eagles. Both teams had lost to NSW, so whoever won today would go through. Sussex batted first, and made 119, which we now knew would take some getting. The South Africans started well, and at 72/0 they should have cruised through. However, Sussex pegged them back, and in the end it took Ryan McLaren hitting a four off the last ball to get their score up to, you guessed it, 119.

Match tied. What do we do now?

I must admit I thought Sussex were OK. They did better against NSW than the Eagles. They would go through on net run rate. But what do I know? Apparently the rules for the Champions’ League call for extra innings. This isn’t quite in the baseball mold. The teams play one extra innings each of either 6 balls or 2 wickets, whichever comes first. If they are still tied after that the number of 6s hit in the match is used as a tie-breaker.

The Eagles batted first and got 9, which isn’t a great score but at least they had runs on the board. They chose CJ deVilliers to bowl for them, and that kid (he’s only 23) could get a job as a Major League closer given the calm he showed. It took him just two balls to end the match. Both of them hit the stumps.

So, Victoria and Bloemfontein go through to the next round, which I have learned is called the “Super 8s”. They join Delhi, Bangalore, Cape Town, NSW and… two of the Deccan Chargers or Somerset Sabres or Trinidad & Tobago, depending on the result of tomorrow’s game between the Chargers and the West Indian side.

Somerset’s adventure in the Champion’s League may have come to an end today after they were soundly beaten by an impressive Trinidad & Tobago side. The West Indians batted first scoring 150, and Somerset suffered a second top order batting collapse. This time the tail was unable to save them. Attention now focuses on the final game in the group on Wednesday between the Deccan Chargers and Trinidad & Tobago. The good news for the Caribbean team is that they don’t have to win. They just have to get close enough to the Chargers’ score to end up with a better net run rate than Somerset. However, if they do win, then Somerset stay in the competition.

In the second game Jacques Kallis lived up to his reputation as one of the best players in the game. His 73*, backed up by a blistering 32* off 11 balls from Ross Talyor, took Bangalore to an impressive 188. Kallis then took 3 for 18 off his 4 overs, removing the top 3 of the Otago batting order. The comfortable win takes Bangalore into the next round.

Tomorrow we have Victoria v Wayamba and Bloemfontein v Sussex.

Day 4 at the Champions’ League saw two fairly one-sided games.

First up the very impressive NSW Blues took on a Sussex Sharks side that was missing Luke Wright (England duty?) and Michael Yardy (sick) and thrashed them. The Blues score of 130/2 looked a little below par, but from the minute Brett Lee dismissed stand-in Sussex captain Ed Joyce first ball the Blues bowlers were dominant. Like the Cobras, the Blues have topped their group with two wins.

Delhi faced possible elimination in their match against Wayamba, but their big guns came through when they were needed. 66 from Sehwag and 61 from Karthik saw them to an impressive 170 and despite a brave innings by Jayawardene the Sri Lankans were never up with the run rate. Wayamba now have to beat the impressive Bushrangers to stand any chance of progressing.

Tomorrow’s games see Somerset take on Trinidad & Tobago, and Bangalore playing an eliminator against Otago – losers go home.

Day three at the Twenty20 Champions’ League, and it was time for Somerset to take the stage. First, however, the Cape Town Cobras sealed a place in the next round with an emphatic 54 run win over the Otago Volts. Cobras captain, Andrew Puttick, became the first player to score a century in the tournament. They look to be a very good side.

In Somerset’s game against the Deccan Chargers Justin Langer won the toss and elected to bowl first. The Hyderabad faithful enjoyed the first few overs as Adam Gilchrist and VVS Laxman set about the Somerset bowling. However, wickets fell, and eventually the Chargers were restricted to 153.

Somerset were pretty much always up with the required run rate, but they too kept losing wickets. At 99-7 and with light rain falling they looked out of it, but James Hildreth and Alfonso Thomas put together a heroic partnership for the 8th wicket. When the final over came around, Somerset needed 5 runs to win off 6 balls.

Veteran New Zealander, Scott Styris, was chosen to bowl the final over, and with his first ball he clean bowled Hildreth. Young Max Waller came out to bat and obviously had no clue, but he had just enough talent to launch a skier off his second ball. It was a cricket equivalent of a sacrifice fly. Styris pouched the catch, but Thomas was now on strike. Five runs were still needed, Somerset had only one wicket left.

The next ball was a bad one, and Thomas dispatched it to the boundary for four. Scores level. And off the final ball of the game Thomas hit another four to grab the win for Somerset.

Boring game, this cricket, eh?

So, a good start for the Sabres, but the Indian teams are now 0-3 for the tournament. And they’ve lost two very close games. That won’t please the locals much.

Tomorrow Brett Lee’s NSW Blues take on the other English side, Sussex Sharks. There will be some Ashes-style rivalry in that. Also the Delhi Daredevils face a must-win game against the Wyamaba Elevens from Sri Lanka.

It was a triumphant day for the Australians today in the Twenty20 Champions’ League. First New South Wales Blues crushed the Bloemfontein Eagles by 53 runs, then Victoria’s Bushrangers beat the highly fancied Delhi Daredevils by 7 wickets. The Blues now have such a high net run rate that they are almost assured of a place in the next round. Victoria still have the dangerous Sri Lankans to face, but are looking good.

With both Bangalore and Delhi having lost their opening games, the India media will be desperate for a win out of the Deccan Chargers tomorrow. The Hyderabad side come up against the Somerset Sabres, whose Marcus Trescothick has just been named Player of the Year for the recent English season. The Chargers are the reigning IPL champions, but embarrassingly for India they are heavily dependent on their Australian stars, Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds.

Wow, that was a magnificent opening to the Twenty20 Champions’ League. The first game was between the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Cape Town Cobras. Playing at home (the tournament is being staged in India), the Royal Challengers won the toss and batted. Thanks mainly to 51 from Robin Uthappa and 53* from Ross Taylor, they set a very competitive target of 180. (US readers please note that these games are limited to 120 pitches per side.)

The Cobras did not look a happy side. Their captain, Graeme Smith, was lost to an injury before the tournament even stared. Star fast bowler, Dale Steyn, was not available for this game either. After three very economical overs Charl Langeveldt injured himself diving for a catch and would probably not be able to bat. And their star batsman, Herschelle Gibbs, was out first ball. Bangalore should have won easily. But the Cobras didn’t give up, and thanks to a magnificent 99* from JP Duminy they reached the target with two balls to spare.

Full scorecard here.

To progress in the series the Royal Challengers now have to beat New Zealand’s Otago Volts, led by Brendan McCullum. They will be at home again, but the Chinnaswamy Stadium was also the site, in April 2008, of the first ever match in the Indian Premier League. In that game McCullum, playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders, scored 158 off just 73 balls. He’ll fancy his chances against the Royal Challengers again.

Meanwhile tomorrow sees both Australian sides in action. The New South Wales Blues take on the Eagles from Bloemfontein, while the Victoria Bush Rangers play the much fancied Delhi Daredevils.

Tomorrow the first ever major international club tournament for cricket opens in India. We are used to seeing international club competition in sports like soccer and rugby, but for cricket this is brand new, and it will therefore be watched very closely.

For the benefit of those of you not familiar with cricket, the tournament will use the Twenty20 format, so the games will be about 3 hours long and there won’t be any draws (though ties are possible). The teams come from India, England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, West Indies and Sri Lanka. I believe that the Pakistani government is still sulking, so we won’t see any of their World Cup winning squad in the tournament, even as guest players in teams from other countries.

The format is four leagues of three, followed two two leagues of four (with, I believe, points carried forward) and then semi-finals and a final.

The English representatives are the Sussex Sharks, and my local boys, the Somerset Sabres. Somerset should get through the first stage — though the match-up with The Deccan Chargers (Hyderabad), led by Adam Gilchrist, on Saturday will be challenging (see you on Twitter, Jonathan). After that they’ll probably have to play the Sharks, whom they have had great battles with all season, and the New South Wales (Sydney) side.

In the other half of the draw we have the other Australian side, Victoria (Melbourne), whose fortunes I will be following closely. They are very good at the Twenty20 game, but they have a very tough draw against the Delhi Daredevils — easily the most exciting batting lineup in the competition — and the Sri Lankan team, Wayamba. The Sri Lankan line-up includes the young spinner, Ajantha Mendis, whom most top batsmen still can’t read effectively. Also in that half of the draw are top sides from Bangalore, Cape Town and Otago.

It promises to be a very exciting tournament, and the forecast for India for the next few weeks is mostly fine. If you’d like to read more about the sides involved, CricInfo has a good introduction.

Update: Reading back over this today I noticed that I has left West Indies off the list of countries represented. I’ve corrected that now. Very sorry.

That’s the theory, but then theories are there to be tested, right?

In Canada right now they are playing the qualifying tournament for cricket’s Under 19 World Cup. Coming up to half way through the tournament, the USA team is on top of the table. They have beaten Ireland, Uganda and Vanuatu, and had a walkover against Sierra Leone. They do still have to play Canada, who beat them in the Americas regional qualifying tournament, and Papua New Guinea who have beaten Canada. There’s also the small matter of Monday’s game against Afghanistan which might have a bit of needle to it. However 6 of the 10 teams playing in Canada go forward to the main tournament in New Zealand next January, so the American kids look like they will be there.

A successful youth team is a good long term policy, but what I’m really looking forward to is American TV audiences discovering Twenty20.

I haven’t posted my Worldcon schedule yet because the timings of events are still somewhat up in the air and I may not be able to be on everything I was originally offered. However, one panel that was suggested that I would very much like to do was on the Future of Sport. If that does happen, I will make the case for Twenty20 cricket conquering the world.

You will be forgiven for scoffing at that. After all, the recent attempt to run a Twenty20 tournament in New York collapsed very quickly, at least in part because the foolish organizers wanted to hold it in October. But it was also because it was a pirate event, and as such it would have not attracted big name players. Today, however, the ICC has sanctioned plans for a Twenty20 tournament to be run by the USA Cricket Association, who we might expect to have a better idea of the weather required to play the game. They are talking about venues in Florida and California.

But wait, you say, Americans have no interest in cricket. This idea is doomed! I don’t think so. Test cricket certainly is a step too far for Americans right now, but Twenty20 is ideally suited to American sport-watching habits. It takes about the same time as a baseball game to play, it has scoring as frenetic as basketball, and it never ends in a draw. Also, being cricket, it is loaded down with statistics, which Americans love. And, as the IPL has proved, it is a tremendous spectacle. Something about the Twenty20 format conspires to produce lots of very close finishes.

What’s more here are a few choice quotes from the USACA’s proposal document:

The existing passion for cricket in the United States currently lies largely in ex-patriot communities from the Caribbean, Sub-Continent and other traditional cricket playing nations and regions.

Their hunger for cricket and willingness to watch cricket on Pay-Per-View television has made the USA the second highest pay television earner in the world, behind India.

The USA is also the world’s second biggest Internet cricket market. The ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 attracted 1.15 billion hits within the USA, only fractionally behind India.

The USA is a very big and densely populated country, and even a small population of cricket watchers can easily produce the same amount of revenue as existing cricket-playing nations. Where there is money, the sport will follow.