Katich

The man who was dumped from the Aussie team while averaging 50+, Simon Katich has called time on his first-class career in Australia – he might still continue on for a little longer with Hampshire in the UK. He will also be available for the Perth Scorchers in the Champions League T20 later in the year, not sure whether that also extends to his availability for second season of the BBL. In another universe Katich is still opening the batting for Australia with Shane Watson, instead he was cast aside, lost his central contract, and was replaced at the top of the order by Phil Hughes, who has now come and gone (again), eventually opening the path for the current pairing of Dave Warner and Ed Cowan who’ve even managed to force Watson down to number 3.

Hughes

While Katich has retired, Hughes is also playing county cricket (for Worcestershire) trying to rebuild his game to try and make another run for Australian selection. He’s only played the one 4-day game so far, hitting 53. While in 4 outings in the one-day comp he’s already hit two centuries and is averaging a very healthy 77. Luckily for Hughes he has age on his side, despite already having two cracks at the international stage, he’s still only 23 – leaving him plenty of time to get all the little niggles in his technique sorted out. I still think his time will come, but for the moment he’s had a few people jump ahead of him in the queue.

AFL

It’s just not cricket, well it’s not, it’s football. The AFL want to start their season a week earlier than usual, problem is they also want to use the MCG. Why is this a problem? Because if Victoria end up in the position to host the Sheffield Shield final then they too will – rightly – want to use the MCG. Afterall the Busrangers did finish equal on points with Queensland and Tasmania at the top of the table last year. The AFL suggest that a new ‘home’ for Cricket Victoria would solve the problem, or at least give them an option aside from the MCG, and while this is true, the AFL could, you know, just play at a different ground – or not change their season structure. The AFL clash would undoubtably attract many more spectators to the ground when compared to the Shield final, but that’s not the point, it’s called the Melbourne CRICKET Ground for a reason.

Mr Cricket

Mike Hussey withdrew from the ODI tour to the UK to stay with his family after his child was born three month premature. All the best to the Hussey family and I hope everything turns out well. Filling Mr Cricket’s seat on the plane is Peter Forrest, who was already the stand-by player for the tour, but the man most likely to be looked to fill his role as the ‘finisher’ in the team will be his brother – as an added bonus that means that Michael Clarke will also have David Hussey’s useful right-arm offies to call upon should he need them.

Waterlogged

The 2012 Friends Life t20 started this week in the UK. So far 13 matches have been cokmpleted, well, they’ve been scheduled. 5 matches have been abandoned without a single ball bowled, one was a no result with only 9.3 overs of play possible, and two have been decided by that odd couple Duckworth and Lewis. Richard Levi has had the only impressive outing with the bat so far strike 69 of just 34 for Somerset.

Gayle

He’s finally back in the international squad … and then doesn’t play due to a “stress-related foot injury”. I’m sure there was a fair percentage of the crowd who had turned up specifically to see Gayle take on the England side only for him to not be out in the middle. What the crowd did see though was the Windies struggling, again, in the end falling more than 100 short of the English total – even with Gayle I suspect they wouldn’t have gotten much closer. Maybe if they hadn’t let Ian Bell pile on 126 runs they might have had a better shot.