I went and did a bit of a hunt for information after talking the other day about the Albion helmet for 2009 which Andre Nel wore in the first two ODI’s against England and found a bit more info to continue the hunt for new 2009 cricket equipment!

It is called the Albion NXT, and it will eventually replace the current Albion helmet, which has been very successful and taken a good chunk of the market share (especially in Australia, Albion’s home market).

The basic idea behind the helmet is to make the most comfortable helmet based around a newly developed “articulated shell assembly”, which appears to be a cross between their standard helmet and those from companies such as Masuri.

I still think the helmet looks a bit too much like Police riot gear, but you can’t argue against improvement, especially in an area such as safety (especially of your head). I’m not sure the slightly odd looks will appeal to everyone, but then the plastic look of the previous helmet was different and we quickly got used to that.

The Albion NXT isn’t available to purchase yet (they are saying December but that could be just in Australia), but as soon as it is it will no doubt be available in all the usual online stores!

There’s something about bowling the Saffers out of the water that gets my writing juices going! Kallis gave us a great quote in the build up to the 2nd ODI, saying two things of particular note:

“From a team point of view it was the worst display we have had for probably two years”
“The guys will come out and you will see a different side.”

Well then, what happened today Jacques?! The game was more or less over by the time I’d made it home, when I was looking forward to a nice evening watching cricket after the decent first ODI. I’ll have to settle for watching the highlights, and it’ll be interesting to see how, or why they were bowled out for so little and how we set about the target with ease. It isn’t what you’d expect from either team (or more to the point, you’d not be that surprised if it was England who capitulated!), so seeing the reaction from the SA camp will be good.

I’m not going to get too excited though, I’ve seen too many false dawns recently as an England fan to think we’ve suddenly become world beaters!

As the end of the English season starts to draw to a close in the next few weeks, cricket companies the world over start to slowly release new equipment hoping to get our money over the winter and before next season. It used to be that we would have to wait until Jan/Feb to see the new lines from companies such as Woodworm, GM, Gray Nicolls etc, but now with a better global marketing strategy from companies like these we see test players using them now, creating a bit of “buzz” and then seeing them released to the Aussie market first in some occasions seeing as their season is soon to spring into action.

As there has been great interest in past posts of mine on equipment, and seeing as my general writing interest in live cricket is low at the moment, I’m going to start showcasing some new stuff as it hits the press. If you have any “scoops” or info which you think is worth me talking about, let me know and I’ll give you the credit if you so wish!

There is talk and rumour about Adidas releasing some cricket equipment this winter after the success of their English and Australian replica shirts. There is no doubt that with a brand name as big as theirs that they will have a certain amount of success, but until we see the quality of the equipment then i’ll reserve judgement on the full success.

Early ‘09 news from Gray Nicolls is two new bat ranges, the ignite and xiphos, and from Albion there is a rather bizarre looking new helmet, as worn by Andre Nel the other night. I’ll try and find a better picture in the next few days but it looks more like a police riot helmet than a cricket one!

Kent batted rubbish – Rob Key admitted it and he’s absolutely right. They even lost me a fiver. Oh well, I won it back and more on the start of the Premier League so happy days!

Speaking of the Premier League (the football kind not the cricket kind), now that it has started cricket will start to find press and tv coverage harder to come by. Unless anything really outstanding happens in the upcoming ODI series against SA, cricket will be nothing but the odd mention a few pages in, which is par for the course and accepted pretty much by now. Clubs around the country have only a couple of league games left in the season and thoughts turn to depressing things like winter. Who’s joining me on a flight to Australia?!

I don’t have high hopes for the series, I’m not that bothered if we win either to be honest, I just want to see some entertaining cricket! We tried to play Scotland today in a warm up to the series, but being August it rained a lot – I don’t know the forecast for the first Twenty20 game, but given this current weather we may not have that much hope of getting a full decent game in. We can hope though!

This Saturday sees the final of the Friends Provident Trophy, between two sides we’re pretty much sick of seeing on TV i reckon, Essex and Kent. Due to their success in the various formats of the game, everyone is pretty well used to the two teams that will be lining up at Lords, and these two also met on Twenty20 finals day when Kent came out winners – and I can’t see any reason why this Final will be any different. Kent’s powerful team will be too much for the teamwork but not big names of Essex, if they survive the rain that is expected to come in (who’d expect any different in the middle of August?!)

So if I’m not going to waste any time talking about the winner (it will be Kent), lets start to make things interesting and start looking for the top batsman, and help someone out there win some money on my tips! In the Kent side, Joe Denly hasn’t looked in fantastic nick in the past couple of weeks, and although he’ll undoubtedly put some runs on the board early, I don’t think he is in the running. Jones, Mahmood, Kemp et all all have the potential to score some big runs, but it is more likely to be a cameo at the end of an innings rather than the match winning score. On the Essex balcony, Napier has been a revelation this season, but on a middle strip at Lords he’ll find those sixes rather harder to hit than at Chelmsford. Skipper Pettini will be under pressure to get his side off to a good start at the top of the order, but beneath that I don’t see them scoring the must have big runs despite Cook and Ravi Bop being available.

So there are two players I havn’t mentioned yet and that is because I think it will be between them, and my money will go where the best value odds are – and that is Key and Van Jaarsveld. Yes, Key may be the obvious option, but he’s playing fantastic cricket at the moment, and earlier this week he played a really smart innings against Leicestershire when he had to battle a bit which shows he can read the situation well. If his odds are too low, then I’ll be looking for Van Jaarsveld to come in at number three and be top scorer – this guy is a class bat and is fully capable of doing that.

So a Kent win and Rob Key top scorer bets, I’ve placed my bets at the bookies! If you’re having a bet let me know what you’re backing as I’d love to know!

“We’ve got Australia in a few months’ time and that’s a whole new challenge”, said Graeme Smith at the end of today’s final test (which we WON!), and he’s right. Although Australia aren’t the completely settled side of a couple of years ago, they won’t capitulate like we did on occasions in this series. They won’t have five out of six batsmen struggling for form against their attack, they won’t have a bowling “unit” as unthreatening as we were at Headingly, and it should be a good test for both teams.

If you had any chance to play Australia you would have chosen this year, with the transition not seeming that easy for some of the players. Come next summer and the Ashes, they should each know their position in the team, especially after home and away series with SA.

But going back to the series – it didn’t quite live up to my expectations and I find myself a little disappointed. I was so looking forward to seeing us battle against them, but each test almost ended up one sided and not the exciting test cricket we so crave. Its a shame Steyn broke a finger as we didn’t see him for two matches as it doesn’t matter which side they play for, you want to see one of the world’s best bowlers playing, full stop.

We showed bursts of talent, but they were all to lost amongst the mediocre performances both individually and as a team, and you can’t help but be a bit frustrated as an England fan. If we did that in a 5 match series against the Aussies we’d probably lose 3 or 4-1 which won’t be good enough next summer. We don’t have a test match now until December though, so plenty of time to think before changes are made. In the end I think it was a mixture of SA being too good for us, along with us definitely not playing to our potential, but we have to move on.

P.S It seems there is a new spin bowler by the name of Mendis who’s pulling up all sorts of trees playing for Sri Lanka at the moment – I’ll try to find out a bit more in the coming weeks as apparently this guy is currently bowling better than Murali, and he’s in the same team… the mind boggles…