Stanford Twenty20 Competition Approaching
We had a number of bits of news released last week including the centrally contracted players for the next 12 months and the squad to go to the West Indies to play for mega-money. There are no real surprises in the Twenty20 squad if you’ve been watching the recent ODI’s and that’s probably a good thing. The players then showed that they could play together as a unit well, and they are all good Twenty20 players so there was no need to bring in specialists such as Graham Napier (even though he has now injured himself playing for Essex).
The layout for the Stanford competition week looks pretty good, building up to the main event between England and the Super Stars on November 1st. There is a round robin type event including Middlesex as they won the Twenty20 this summer, and it should hopefully provide some entertaining cricket. When the domestic West Indian Twenty20 took place they used bizarre looking black cricket bats which I hope we won’t be seeing - I’m all for innovation but that is too far!
October 25: Stanford Super Stars v Trinidad and Tobago
October 26: England v Middlesex
October 27: Trinidad and Tobago v Middlesex
October 28: England v Trinidad and Tobago
October 29: Stanford Super Stars v Middlesex
November 1: Stanford Super Stars v England
I’ve shown the match schedule above - I’m not sure if the games leading up to the monster money final have any ridiculous prize fees to be won, or if the other teams are just getting a good lump sum for the whole thing, but I’m sure they won’t be out of pocket…
England v Middlesex will be an intriguing tie - on paper it will look a bit silly who should win (England, of course), but the Middlesexians (their new nickname from me) will be fired up to prove everyone wrong. I take it that Shah will be playing for England rather than his county, so that could be a very interesting matchup!
Ashes Tickets Sold Out
It didn’t take long after the first set of Ashes tickets went on sale for them to already be sold out - just a few hours. The Edgbaston test match was the first match tickets were available for, and even at the steep price of £75 all 20k odd have gone for the first three days at the end of July. I didn’t even realise they were available!
I had a right laugh at Edgbaston earlier in the year and it should be a cracker of a test to watch and a good place to enjoy your cricket. I’m sure everyone who goes will love it, even if we’re two-nil down when we get there (just being pessimistic as always..)
To be honest, I might just book some holiday off work, buy a nice new big tele and watch it that way (Ashes in HD anyone?!).
The Good, The Bad and The Mediocre of the Summer
Well England have played their last game of the summer (well it was supposed to be summer), so we might as well have a quick look back on some of the things which happened - ones that I can remember anyway!
The Good
- KP’s performance as the new England captain - came in with no captaincy experience and managed to get players performing and you can’t ask for more. A little bit worried he might just pick his mates even when times are tough, but I could be proved wrong.
- The return of Freddie - Rejoice! Flintoff back into the side is a HUGE boost, he adds something with bat, ball and character and we’ve missed him big style. Fingers crossed for no more injuries.
- England’s ODI performance against SA - 4-0 is a fantastic result for us, as things clicked in most areas for a change. We’ll not get too over the top but it was a pleasing sight after recent efforts on the ODI front. Maybe good things will happen at the Stanford Twenty20 competition!
- Stuart Broad - Not an outstanding test series summer, but he did very well in the ODI’s, and proved enough about him to see that is a real one to look forward to watching in the years to come.
- Getting Harmy back in the side - We all want Harmison in the side if his head is in the right place and he is bowling well. He was doing just that for Durham so he was brought back in and didn’t let us down. Please let it continue!
- KP’s Switch Hit - Brilliant, genius shot!
The Bad
- Not performing well against SA in the test series - we may have scored over 600 at Lords, and won the final test, but the fact of the matter is we lost the series and didn’t play consistently good cricket - we failed to even compete in stages.
- The Furore at the Oval ODI against NZ - with Grant Elliot being run out whilst lying on the floor this wasn’t a pretty occasion (despite my feelings that not that much was wrong with it). It died down pretty quickly, but for a while there cricket didn’t have a great ‘rep’.
- Tim Ambrose - Sorry Tim, but shut the door on your way out. No runs with the bat, dropped catches and not enough about you as a keeper, your time is up my friend.
- Playing NZ away, then home - It bored the crap out of me seeing the same opposition for what seemed likes months on end - shocking planning.
- The ODI against NZ at Edgbaston - I was there and I loved the day (and the nights before and afterwards..), but it was crap weather, I was in shorts and t-shirt fancy dress and the match was abandoned a few balls short of being an official match - what a waste of everyone’s time!
The Mediocre
- Strauss, Bell, Collingwood with the bat - individually at small stages they did well (Bell’s 199 in particular), but looking at the whole series they did it when they looked about to be for the chop which is really depressing. We know they can do it, so its frustrating when they wait for last chance salon to perform.
- Sideshow Ryan - After being the best and most consistent England bowler for a year, this summer wasn’t a great one for Ryan. Whether it was caused by injuries or not, he didn’t look threatening or worthy of a spot in the team towards the end of the year. A real shame after a great year previous but there are others pushing for this spot and he’ll have to put in some work.
- The Summer - Just generally, if you had to put a tag on the summer of cricket ‘mediocre’ would be it. We beat NZ like you would expect, but not in a convincing fashion, and then lost to SA before winning the ODI series. Up and down like normal for England then!
I’ve probably missed some bits out - so let me know what you thought of the summer in the comments!
2009 Slazenger Bats
Slazenger were one of the first brands last season to release new equipment for their sponsored stars (Bell, Collingwood and Prior to name three), and they are doing the same with their 2009 Slazenger equipment as well. It has been used in the past few weeks and getting a bit of air time in the recent ODI series, meaning people are starting to look for info on it.
They havn’t changed that much from the last year, but they have introduced the Slazenger i-blade and the Slazenger air blade to the bat range. Collingwood will use the i-blade, the bat which is the “power” bat in the new Slazenger range. The air blade bats are Slazenger’s lightest ever bat range, and will be used by Ian Bell. Pictures will follow as I find some good’uns (I’ve only seen rubbish ones so far!)
