This week as England’s summer of cricket starts with the 1^st test against Bangladesh at Lord’s we ask who is likely to make the long plane trip for the Ashes in November. We also look at Shahid Afridi’s appointment as Pakistan captain, report on another prize for Graeme Swann, praise Hashim Amla and round-up the latest county cricket action.

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This week we bask in the glory of England finally winning a major limited overs cricket tournament after 35 years of hurt by speculating over the likely make-up of the side for the 50 over World Cup on the subcontinent next year. We also pay tribute to Michael Hussey, look at the Michael Clarke conundrum facing the Australian selectors and round-up the latest fallout from India’s early exit. Finally, we look at a new name and an old face that could well meet in an England team in the near future.

The Reverse Sweep is an irreverent and acerbic round-up of the week that was in cricket. For similar musings on this wonderful game of ours please visit my blog also entitled The Reverse Sweep, read my twice-weekly column on CricDude, or follow me on Twitter @TheReverseSweep.

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Australia vs England Twenty 20 World Cup Final Preview and Prediction

They have been the best two teams in the tournament, but both have had significant obstacles to overcome. For England it was the Duckworth Lewis method, which has been shown in this tournament to be wholly inappropriate for T20 cricket. And for Australia it has been their worrying propensity for batting collapses, which got them into trouble against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and most famously of all Pakistan in a pulsating semi-final. The common denominator in the Australian recovery in each of those games was Michael Hussey who either supported or led his side to a decent total or as on Friday simply exploded runs.

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Pakistan must be sick of Michael Hussey and his superhero abilities. In the infamous Sydney test at the beginning of the year it was Hussey who swung a seemingly lost cause back for to Australia with a masterful hundred, admittedly aided and abetted by Kamran Akmal’s butter fingers and an inevitable Pakistani batting collapse.

Yesterday when Hussey came in at 105 for 5 in the 13th over, with Australia still needing 87 for victory, his quest seemed hopeless. This was despite the best intentions of Cameron White who was trying to repair the damage left by his skipper Michael Clarke. Clarke had inexplicably come in at number four ahead of White and the Hussey brothers and had proceeded to score 17 off 19 balls – hardly what was required when the asking rate was over nine runs per over. In T20 cricket, Clarke is nothing more than a passenger.

When White went down with all guns blazing in the seventeenth over, 53 runs were required from the final 21 balls and at last Pakistan looked like they were going to beat a foe that has spent the last year royally thrashing it every time they met. Yesterday it looked like the slave was going to become the master.

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