Imran Tahir was left out of the 1st Test in Brisbane, this puzzled many people. In my wrap up I mentioned that while his exclusion was odd that I didn’t think that he would have actually made much difference to the result. It’s now lunch on day 4 of the 2nd Test, and Tahir has match figures of 0/249 off 35 overs (yes, 7.11 rpo), and he’s bowled just one maiden. I feel my comments have, at this point, been validated.
Should Watson give up bowling? Is Watson good enough to be selected as specialist batsman with a test average of only 37? Should Watson be opening or batting down the order? Why hasn’t Watson scored more test centuries? Should Watson give up the short forms to focus on staying fit for test matches? The questions come with relative ease, the answers on the other hand aren’t as straight-forward.
Amla and Kallis were pure class as usual, but the Aussies fought back through a maiden century to Ed Cowan and a third double century of the year to the unstoppable Michael Clarke. After day one, and then the wash out of day two you would have never expected Australia to be a very outside chance of victory on day five, but they were.
International cricketers needs to sort their shit out. Front foot no-balls are inexcusably amateur, and ‘thanks’ to technology they are ruining the flow of a game, and most critically the thrill of a dismissal.
I complained yesterday on Twitter that the Champions League is ‘silly’, you see, the problem I have is that it isn’t really a ‘champions’ league, it’s more like an IPL invitational. 4 of the 10 teams in the final draw are from the IPL, all automatically into the ‘main’ draw despite 2 of them having never even been ‘champions’ of the IPL – one of these, the Mumbai Indians, has however won the Champions League, so make of that what you will.
It’s almost over, there is just one match left – the final. The Aussies are gone after being obliterated by the Windies in the Semi, while defending champs England didn’t even make it to the Semis. The final is Chris Gayle’s West Indies against the home side, Sri Lanka – its pretty much anyone’s match, but if Gayle and co are on song like they were in the semi final against Australia then Sri Lanka will have an uphill battle.
Last night while watching the World Twenty20 an ad came on promoting the return of the Ryobi cup on Fox Sports. The ad brought back childhood memories of sitting on the lounge room floor watching domestic one day cricket, back in the good old days when it was still shown on free to air TV. Then I had a thought…
Just when it looked like all the crazy talk had died down, the Olympics showed up and a couple of ridiculously quick Jamaicans started to appear in the cricketing headlines again. Usain Bolt and Johan Blake are both phenomenal athletes, no one will disagree on that but are they cricketers? I mean genuine, worthy of a spot in a top flight team, cricketers. Logic says no. Media fueled marketing madness says yes.
Like the Stars and Sixers, they’ve managed to keep the core of last years squad – a lot of who have international experience – while at the same time building upon it. They’ve lured Adam Voges back from the Stars, enticed Pat Cummins away from both Sydney teams and picked up Tom Triffitt to replace Luke Ronchi.
Like the Thunder, the Renegades will be almost unrecognisable haven’t changed almost their entire squad. The only big name they’ve re-signed is Aaron Finch. They’ll notice the loss of Hodge and Maxwell – on the whole their batting looks a little light on compared to some other teams. The loss of Nannes and Tait won’t hurt them as much as it might have 3 or 4 years ago, the additions on Rimmington and Darren Pattinson should cover them.
When the 5pm deadline arrived the Thunder had only announced 12 signings. An hour or so later they announced that they’ve got some in the works and have been given an extension to get them finalised. I hope for their sakes that Warner and Gayle are those that are “in the works”.
Phil Hughes withdrew from last year’s tournament (he was originally signed with the Thunder) to focus on ‘fixing’ his batting after being dumped from the test team for a second time, but he’s currently dominating the county scene in the UK, having particular success in the shorter forms of the game, he’s in good touch at the moment, and the Strikers will be hoping he is still in good nick by the time December rolls around.
When week one of contracting began the stories started that Shane Warne was definitely coming back, and was to replace Cameron White as captain. The two weeks of madness have now run their course and Warne isn’t yet a sure thing for BBL|02.
Have retained the core of their title winning squad from last year. They’ve lost Watson to the Heat, and Cummins to the Scorchers – but neither loss should hurt too much, as Cummins didn’t play at all last year, and neither would likely to be available for the entire tournament due to Test/ODI commitments.
Perhaps the least ‘devious’ of all the teams, the only player they’ve poached from interstate is Watson – and technically he’s just returning home. They also only lost one player to a rival team, Michael Neser, but with the return of Ben Cutting and the addition of Kemar Roach the loss means very little.