Twenty20 Finals Day Success!
This is going to be a short post seeing as I managed to break my finger taking a caught and bowled on Saturday (yes, I kept hold of the ball!), and typing isn’t proving the easiest thing to do in the world at the moment, but I didnt want to let the finals day go past without saying anything.
Despite my prediction of two teams getting to the final being slightly incorrect, I was nearly correct with my choice of winner! It was a great final (aside of the pain I was in whilst watching it), really tense and never sure which way it was going. It was everything you want in Twenty20 cricket, great entertainment, big shots and commentators going over the top - you can see why it has such a high profile at the moment.
So, congrats to Middlesex who will be off to the West Indies later this year to take on Stanford’s winners - along with the “Champions League” (although this still waits to be confirmed). The players will reap the rewards and hopefully play some entertaining cricket along the way like Saturday!
P.S. If I disappear for a week or two its probably due to my lack of typing ability, but I’ll try to keep updated!
Twenty20 Finals Day 2008
Seeing as we’re all too depressed to talk about test cricket, we can instead look towards Twenty20 finals day! It takes place this Saturday at the Rose Bowl, and it should be a great day of cricket at a great ground.
With the final quarter final delayed, it was eventually played yesterday and Durham beat Glamorgan to seal their semi final against Middlesex in the second semi which will be played on the day. Durham have a powerful team with some well known players in Collingwood, Plunkett, Harmison let alone Chanderpaul and Pollock who are also in there as overseas/kolpak players. Middlesex aren’t quite as big in terms of names, but players such as youngster David Malan have shown that this competition can make names rather than be bossed by them, and he has been backed up by a proper “team” ethic. Tim Murtagh has been taking a lot of wickets, and they’ll also have Shaun Udal in there who will know how to bowl at the Rose Bowl having played there for the past few years with Hampshire.
In the first semi final we have probably the two most fancied teams on the day in Kent and Essex. Essex have been a revelation this year, and one player in particular who has made the game his own is all rounder Graham Napier. There will be a lot of expectation on his shoulders on finals day, and it will be a good test of him, but there are others in the team such as Ten Doeschate also playing well, and in James Foster they probably have the in-form keeper. Kent have been strongly fancied from the start, with Key and Denly at the top of the order backed up by run machine Van Jaasveld, allrounders Mclaren and Mahmood and Arafat taking wickets for fun at the moment they are a very powerful looking side.
So who am I backing for the win…. I think that the two what I’ve called “powerful” sides will get through to the final - Kent have a lot of good experienced players who, as long as they can keep Napier down, should have the beating of Essex. In the second semi, Durham have too good a side to back against them, although this isn’t really Chanderpaul’s type of game and wiley Middlesex might just have a chance, but its a slim one.
So a Kent vs Durham final then…. I could have a very good case for backing either of these teams such is their ability and I fully expect people to disagree, but I’m going to stick my neck on the block and go for Kent. The way that Twenty20 cricket goes though, it could well be that neither of them makes the final! Let me know who you think will do well this Saturday! Now, which way was it to the bookies….
Cricket’s depressing - when does the football season start?!
Yes, really, that is all I’m saying.
photo copyright getty images
Pattinson? Really? Controversy Rules!
Just how far down the pecking order have Harmy and Hoggy (along with others) fallen to be overlooked for a 29yr old roof tiler from Australia to be picked ahead of them? Yes, he’s had a decent season so far and taken wickets but really? He’s played something like 11 first class matches and all of a sudden he’s given the new ball against one of the best test sides in the world! Where is the history to show he can do is consistently at a high level? I don’t have any beef against the guy himself, its not his fault he got picked, but just how the bloody hell was he picked in the first place?
I’m hoping the reason for not picking Harmy is so as not to disrupt his bowling recovery mid-season, keep him bowling and taking wickets before bringing him back for the winter tours ahead of next summer’s Ashes series. But we also need to win this series, and putting in an untried internationally bowler against a side which batted for over two days in the 2nd innings at Lords without problems is not the right way to go about it.
The other issue is the delightful keeper-batsman quandary again. I’m all for Freddie in for Colly, but little Tim Ambrose has not done enough with the bat since he got in the team to suggest he can fulfil the role that a number 6 has to. Maybe I’m just being a bit too pessimistic - roll on day five and we’ll see if I’m right or being an idiot!
And then after those questions, we also have the whole controversy over catches claimed which aren’t so - its all too much for one day’s test cricket! Maybe I’ll post once I’ve had a think over the weekend about what this all means. In the mean time, I read a cracking post from Aggers over on the BBC TMS blog, well worth a read.
How Could It End Up So Boring?
I was going to post during the first test match after the excitement of the first two days, but the three days that followed were so boring that I lost all the enthusiasm I had built up for this series. After being bloody awesome in our first innings with the bat and then once with the ball, all entertainment after that just died and I’ll be honest, I didn’t even watch a lot of it - and that is coming from someone who was really looking forward to it. Cricket needs to be careful not to give us these snooze fests on benign pitches, it was no wonder that there were tickets available for the fourth and fifth days - who’s going to pay to watch one side just block the crap out of the ball and the other side not have any answer?
Anyway, moving on to the next test (and hopefully some entertainment), we have the delightful debate of what to do with Freddie! He is back in the squad, and will he return as a fourth bowler or as a fifth and a replacement for a batsman? If you replaced Collingwood there probably wouldn’t be too many complaints as Colly has struggled for runs recently. Maybe he could go and do what Bell did and score a double ton for his county and come back stronger. If he replaces a bowler who will it be? Sidebottom, who has done so well for England over the last year has a bit of a dodgy back and was well down on pace at Lords. Anderson has spells of genius but they are in too short supply, and Broad is awesome with the bat a player of the future, but his bowling average is in the 40’s which is too high.
Freddie hasn’t exactly set the world alight with the bat in his recuperation which could be a gamble if he comes in for Colly - and his bowling has been decent without really getting the reward of wickets. I think I’d still bring him in though for Colly, maybe bringing back Prior to bat at six and Freddie seven with Broad eight. That would be a powerful lower middle order and have the extra strength of Freddie with the ball as well. It won’t happen, but that’s the beauty of opinions!
England vs South Africa - the build up continues!
I’ve put the build up continues, but the series build up has not actually created that much of a buzz. Despite mine (and from the comments on the previous post it looks like other’s) enthusiasm, there isn’t that much excitement coming from the press, TV or other areas about the first test on Thursday. I guess to a certain extent most of the stuff has actually been said already - we know the “KP” angle, England won’t be changing their side so we havn’t got that to debate either, and maybe that’s why it all seems quiet. I bet that come the end of the first test though we will have plenty to talk about, players to debate the position of and contentious decisions etc!
I was actually born in SA, so I hold a certain amount of affection for them normally, but I have always classed myself as English, and as such I want us to destroy them! Well, maybe not destroy - I’d just take a win to be honest, as its not going to be easy. It’s a shame most of us have to work when the test starts, I guess the BBC updates will have to suffice with a lot of F5 pressing during the day and highlights from Sky Sports in the evening!
Roll on Thursday!!
