Test Dilemma’s and will Australia and India please grow up
With the first test against New Zealand approaching it is time to start thinking about the possibilities selection wise. There are challenges for positions in most sections of the team, and the players will be putting forward their case in the warm up games on at the moment. I’ll talk about them and let you know who I’d pick – let me know if you disagree!
Starting at the top there is the batting selection. Cook, KP, Bell, Colly and Vaughan are already on the team sheet, with seemingly Shah and Strauss vying for one spot. If Strauss gets it, it seems he might bat at no 3 with Bell moving to no 6 probably. The second warm up game starting this evening goes with this line up I think. If Shah gets it then Bell will stay at 3 and Shah gets the no 6 spot in a nice and simple move. In the first warm up game Shah did himself no harm nearly getting a century, while Strauss (who has been playing club cricket in NZ) played onto his stumps for a poor 4. I was watching Sky Sports the other day and Dominic Cork was quite adamant that Strauss shouldn’t even be in the squad, although he never quite backed up this claim with why he thought that. I’d go the way of Shah – he seems to have done enough in my mind to be given a bit of a run in the side and has looked at times a class player. However this seems to be against what the selectors will do according to the press, and I’m unsure what more Shah could do to get a test place!
Seddon Cricket Ground, Hamilton
Onto the keeper situation – and time for me to toss a coin. Mustard kept well in the ODI’s, and showed that he had potential with the bat, although I’m not sure how his batting would fare in test match cricket. It was either Craig McMillan or Cork the other day who said however, that we should be looking to bring Tim Ambrose as he was the real deal. I’m not going to say one way or the other as I don’t know enough so heads its Mustard, tails its Ambrose… and its come down tails!
Onto the bowling attack and our way without Flintoff is to go with 3 seamers and a spinner and I see no change to that formula here. The spinner will be Monty, and you couldn’t drop Hoggard or Sidebottom (if he gets over a hamstring niggle) with the new ball. Which leaves one spot open for a seamer. I would give Jimmy Anderson a break, he took some hammering in the ODI’s and would do well to maybe take a step back. Broad is one for the future and I’d be really looking to get him into the side permanently very soon, but I don’t know if now is the time. Much to the despair of a few people I expect, I would go with our friend Harmy. The very same Harmy who has managed to strain his back without even playing a proper game of cricket out there! Hold on, what am I saying – I want to bring in a permanently injured, homesick bowler who isn’t a shadow of his former self over an up and coming youngster who seems to not let setbacks affect him at all (see 36 off the over in the world twenty20 for what I mean here). I must be mad and I remain the right to change my mind at any point! What I really can’t understand is how Tremlett is still staying in the selectors thoughts. Please, anyone tell me why he is there. Broad is many times better and it annoys me to watch the mediocre performer that is Tremlett in the England side.
The final thing I wanted to say (on this rather long blog post!), is how boring it is getting reading about another incident between the players of Australia and India. Recently we had Sharma fined for over ellaborate celebration (ridiculous, I think you should be allowed to do anything!), and what really annoyed me here was a quote from the Indian team which went something like “Australia started it”. I mean come on, are we back in the playground? Australia don’t seem to know how to play humbly though, as shown by the continued comments coming out of their camp regarding some of the Indians. Guys, give it a rest now eh, its getting very boring.
AB de Villiers out on a double bouncer!
Right now I’m a bit bored of talking about England’s cricket. Luckily for me interesting stuff is happening around the world! Take a look at this video to see a replay of South Africa’s AB de Villiers getting out against Bangladesh - its pretty comical and I don’t think I’ve seen it happen in international cricket before. The only video I could find doesn’t show the dismissal live, but if you see about 20 seconds in they show you a replay from the stump cam. Enjoy!
IPL Player Auction – Dhoni ‘worth’ US $1.5 million
Evidently, this caused a bit of a stir around the world, but that media excitement didn’t really get as far as England. Sure, there was a bit of coverage about it and some stuff in yesterday’s papers, but not to the extent where you actually knew what was going on without having to read a few different sources. So I went to Live Cricket Updates which gave me a few sites which actually listed what was going on so I could get my head around it.
From what I understand, players were “auctioned” (by someone who didn’t even own them), to the various teams in the Indian Premier League. This is the ICC ratified version (I think!) of the Twenty20 competition going on in India this spring. Teams with lots of money could afford the best players, or those which will get them back the most amount of money in terms of marketing exposure! Now I think I heard that players would get the amount they went for as a salary, but this could be wrong. MS Dhoni was the most ‘expensive’ player, going for something like £750k, which isn’t all that surprising when you consider that he is India’s captain (read ‘highly marketable’), and a hell of a player with the bat and gloves. However, even decent players who won’t be playing this year went for a fair old whack. Justin Langer, who will be playing for Somerset this season whilst the IPL is going on, went for just over £100k!
I think this shows the huge amount of money in the game in India, which appears to be blowing any other country out of the water, England and Australia included. There is such a huge following in India and clearly some very rich individuals / companies are starting to see some potential lucrative revenue streams. I guess we won’t know the impact of this for a year or so, but buckle up, as it looks like this Twenty20 game, started to fill a couple of weeks in an English summer will very probably take over the cricket world in the next few years.
Lastly – I didn’t see the England highlights the other night as I was too busy swearing at my broken laptop. Damn computers when they break are useless – now I have to go searching for another one. That is unless some kind soul out there has a brand new laptop they want to pass my way……. thought not!
Gilchrist Retires
Just a week or so ago Shaun Pollock announced his retirement and now we have another modern day cricket legend retiring - Adam Gilchrist. After the limited overs games against India, Gilchrist will put the gloves and bat down from international cricket, although he will be playing in one of the Indian Cricket Leagues (I can’t remember which is the “legal” one and the “rebel” one).
Gilchrist has been part of one of the most successful sides in cricketing history, and his batting ability changed the role of the modern day wicket keeper of that there is no doubt. Every side is now looking for their Gilchrist, the wicket keeper who can score a test hundred against every test match side, and the second fastest test century of all time. Trying to live up to the best isn’t easy though as England have found! He is the sort of player who could have stayed on his batting ability alone - the fact that he also currently holds the record for dismissals makes his achievements all the more amazing.
I’ll miss watching Gilchrist play - he was very entertaining with the bat, a damn good keeper and always seemed to come across as one of the “nice guys”. Enjoy your international retirement Gilchurch (his nickname!)
Warne plays poker over professional cricket!
I couldn’t quite believe it when I read this today – Shane Warne will miss the start of the county season in England as he will be playing poker in Vegas!! Yes really, the professional cricketer will be fulfilling a sponsors request by showing up at the World Series over playing for the team he captains (Hampshire) in cricket.
I understand the demands that sponsors put on people, but this shows piss poor planning from someone, and I can’t believe that Hampshire aren’t more up in arms about it. He is supposed to be a cricketer, not a poker player and this looks like he’s just taking the piss out of them. Obviously he can only get away with it as Hampshire would rather Shane for 90% of the season (he’s already ruled himself out of Twenty20 again) than not at all, but does it really set a good example as a captain? I’m not sure it does..
I think he should forfeit his place in the tournament and give the chance to me!!
Pollock Retires
I’ve kind of lost a bit of interest in the international cricket world at the moment with all the goings on between Australia and India – and the other test matches between South Africa and the WIndies, and New Zealand and Bangladesh didn’t inspire me to stay in and watch any highlights, so it been a quiet time for me in terms of thinking about cricket.
However, I couldn’t let the retirement from International Cricket of Shaun Pollock go unmentioned on this blog, despite the fact that it was announced a few days ago. At the age of 34, Shaun has decided to jump before he was pushed by the selectors out of the team after a hugely successful career. From a purely selfish point of view it is disappointing he decided to do this the winter before the Proteas come to England, as he is a great player to watch. I’ve always considered him in the Glenn McGrath mould with the ball – a super accurate bowler who won’t scare you with his pace but will with the pressure he puts on you. He was a lot better than McGrath with the bat though!
I’m not sure he had to retire – despite the fact he had been dropped a couple of times recently, I would still pick him in the first XI of South Africa (probably over Nel), and he obviously thinks he can still play cricket as there is talk of him coming over to play county cricket in England.
This wasn’t particularly his finest moment (in the World Cup in his home country as captain), but it sticks in my mind as one of the most memorable things involving him. So below is Sri Lanka’s Sangakkarra “psyching” him out!
P.S. with nothing much else going on in the cricket world at the moment, the next couple of posts will probably be based on new equipment for the 2008 season so I can get you all to part with your money!!
