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England Win Twenty20 World Cup

Tim Mathias — Mon, 17 May 2010 02:18:14 +0000

Only sightscreen issues obstruct England as they satiate 35-year hunger for World T20 title.

There could not have been a more fitting venue than the Kensington Oval for the final of the World T20. On the basis of conditions, each team could have been granted a home advantage. Australia could easily have imagined themselves at Perth’s WACA such was the pace and bounce of the Barbadian wicket. For England the support was not too dissimilar from those seen at the English test match grounds, in that it was made of Britishers with rosy red skin, as equally from the flow of alcohol as the effect of the sun’s rays.

Nor could there be, in the opinions of numerous journalists, commentators and analysts, two more worthy teams to be placed in the final. For such an endorsement from those within the game suggests that the format of the tournament is as much about quality of cricket played by those deserving of progression, as guaranteeing Indian participation for as long as possible (and the resultant viewing figures).

Use of the term ‘blade’ is apt with Shane Watson, his cutting and chopping of wide off-side deliveries can be sublime, but targeted by England today he offered a sharp edge behind the stumps. Whilst a grab from Kieswetter was not enough to claim the wicket, it was a sharp second chance as the ball was parried to Swann at first slip. Nestling between his wrists to dismiss the outspoken opener, the wicket was to be an indication for the fortune that would go England’s way throughout the match.

Yet this is not to suggest that England’s victory was nothing short of deserved. In a disciplined performance in the field England’s bowlers stuck to their plan. Little if anything was presented to be driven, as short of a length became the norm, stifling the Australian batsmen and only two boundaries were conceded in first half on the innings. The lack of scoring opportunities shook an out of form Michael Clarke, prompting some ill-advised singles. Accounting for the wicket of Dave Warner was a mixture of poor judgement but equally an on-edge display of fielding, which became typical of England’s effort in the first half.

Australia were reeling at 8 for 3 as Haddin was adjudged to have been caught down the leg side by keeper Kieswetter, although replays and a bruise on the hip suggested little, if any bat contact. Clarke’s scratchy innings was curtailed by another impressive spell from Graeme Swann, as Collingwood dived to pluck a chance from a mistimed onside flick, part of a display that would suggest he could be the leading fielder in world cricket.

Momentum appeared to shift in the 13^th over as Mike Yardy was dispatched for 21 runs as David Hussey and Cameron White combined powerfully for much needed runs. Yet any chance of an Australian comeback was terminated when White found a diving Stuart Broad at deep extra cover, making up for a making an embarrassing mess of a chance, offered in the previous over from Hussey.

David, accompanied by his brother Mike made Broad along with England pay for this error, joining forces to finish the innings in typical Hussey fashion, setting England 147 to win.

Despite the dismissal of Lumb in the second over, it was only an issue regarding a stubborn sightscreen that provided any hindrance to the run chase. Pietersen, along with Kieswetter built momentum as they complied 41 at the end of the power play, before tucking into the bowling during the middle stages. The innings stumbled on a minor blip as Pietersen holed out to deep long off and soon after Kieswetter, in a bizarre mixture of pre-meditated movement ending with a leave found his off stump demolished.

It was England captain Paul Collingwood who, through midwicket smashed the winning run in the 17^th over. This was a performance, on the day and so too throughout the tournament by which England’s balanced (and unchanged) team have exhibited discipline, energy and focus, along with the desperately required ethic of ruthlessness, notably during the power plays.

Yet perhaps it was the hunger, from England’s lack of success during world events that was most telling, satiated after 35 years.

Michael Hussey Superhero Status Achieved

David Green — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:04:29 +0000

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.

But Hussey was not afraid of this cornered tiger, and took over from where White had left off. From the 19th over bowled by the excellent Mohammad Aamer, Hussey managed to contrive two boundaries and crucially four two’s with a mixture of unorthodox strokes and Usain Bolt like running between the stumps together with Mitchell Johnson. This meant 18 were required from the final over to be bowled by Saeed Ajmal.

Johnson managed to scramble a run off the first ball. And then Hussey went Biff! Baff! Pow! Zap! as 22 runs came off the next four balls. The Australians were jubilant and Pakistan were devastated. Hussey had completed his mission impossible just before the message self-destructed. Incredible.

Hussey is like a chameleon in that his batting seems to have so many different styles. He can be a finisher par excellence like Michael Bevan, a blocker that can bore the pants off you and yesterday his hitting was quite remarkable with his unbeaten 60 coming off just 24 balls with six monstrous sixes. He was only recalled to Australia’s T20 side just before the tournament and now has a strike rate of 150.

So, Australia’s ten man side and passenger captain move on to a tantalising final with England in Barbados. Paul Collingwood will know that if his side get into a matchwinning situation they will never be able to discount the Aussies until the last ball has been bowled. The fat lady had sung and left the building yesterday, but somehow miraculously Hussey was able to get to come back in for an unlikely and awe-inspiring encore.

As well as writing regularly for World Cricket Watch, David Green has his own blog entitled The Reverse Sweep, which is updated daily, and writes a twice weekly column for CricDude. You can also follow David on Twitter @TheReverseSweep.

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Listen to the Best Alternative Cricket Commentary on WCW

David Siddall — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:08:41 +0000

The World Cricket Watch homepage has changed very slightly. . .

But Can You Spot the Difference?

Clue: The cricketing acronym TMS stands for what?

Answer: We now provide you with the most entertaining and irreverent cricket commentary you’ll ever come across.

Please visit the right sidebar to start listening to this new, exciting brand of commentary from people like you and me – passionate cricket fans. As you can see, we’re not laying claim to creating this service. But we are very jealous of the guys who did. If you still haven’t twigged, I’m talking about the Test Match Sofa team. Here’s what’s coming up…

Listen to the IPL Semis and Final and the T20 World Cup

Tom from the sofa has just given us the new and improved code for the player. It comes just in time for the IPL semis and final. They’ll also be covering the T20 World Cup from the Caribbean in the upcoming weeks. If you haven’t experienced the TMS fix yet, I suggest you give it a go.

You can also follow @TestMatchSofa on Twitter. Tweet them during commentary and they’ll even give you a shout out!

Oh and one last thing. If you run a cricket website, you too can also feature the TMS player on your site. Just visit Test Match Sofa and drop them an email. Tom, Dan and the rest of the team are a very friendly bunch as you might imagine and they’ll hook you up.

Right, I’m off to calm myself down before the excitement of the semi-finals tonight.

A Tribute to Sir Alec Bedser

David Green — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:06:07 +0000

I am sorry to see that Sir Alec Bedser died last night at the age of 91.

He was one of England’s greatest ever bowlers. 1,924 first-class wickets at 20.41 including 236 for England in 51 Tests proves that undeniable fact.

If it hadn’t been for World War II, Bedser would have played even more tests. He had to wait until 1946 when he was 28 to make his test match bow.

But he didn’t look back after that. And he also troubled Bradman, getting him out twice for a duck and six times in total.

As usual with cricketers from a previous era, Bedser was a lot tougher than the players of today. Given Ricky Ponting’s incandescence with England’s bowlers continuously leaving the field he would surely admire Bedser who once reminisced that “In my entire Test career I left the field only once. It was at Adelaide and the temperature was around a hundred. I went out but came back and bowled.”

They don’t make them like Alec Bedser anymore; more’s the pity. Rest in peace, Alec and make sure that you get Bradman out regularly in the England and Australia tests played out in Heaven.

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Tamim Iqbal Shows His IPL Credentials

David Green — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 10:47:48 +0000

A while back I wrote that Tamim Iqbal had successfully graduated from the Sehwag School for batting. That was after his brilliant century 151 against India in January.

Today he decided to take his PhD and secure a spot in the IPL with his batting in the second test against England in Dhaka. And unlike Matt Hayden he did it without using a Mongoose.

Tamim treated Tim Bresnan with the disdain he deserves as perhaps England’s least threatening opening bowler of all time. And then he took a shine to Graeme Swann, newly installed as the second best test bowler in the World. Tamim treated him like a club 3rd XI occasional bowler. Steve Finn was carted for 22 from his two overs.

He reached his fifty off only 34 balls and had reached 85 (off 71) before he got a diabolical decision being given out caught behind off his arm to give James Tredwell his first test wicket. This prevented him from getting a 100, and who knows a 150, before lunch. It would have been as deserved as it would have been memorable.

If the shadow of his former self Damien Martyn can get an IPL contract then Tamim can expect his Blackberry to be buzzing soon.

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Matthew Hayden Bullies with a Mongoose

David Green — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:18:37 +0000

After coming aground abruptly against Sachin Tendulkar and the Mumbai Indians, I wrote that the Delhi Daredevils were similar to Liverpool Football Club in that tremendous success was normally failed by dismal failure. It’s not as if I wasn’t prepared either as my choice to support Delhi met with a chorus of warnings that the Daredevils were perennial underachievers.

Today with Virender Sehwag again at his scintillating best, Delhiposted 185/6 against the Chennai Super Kings. Game over. Or so I thought.

Enter that bully from days of yore, Matthew Hayden. But this time armed with a new weapon called the Mongoose. This new bat has a longer handle, is shorter and thicker than conventional cricket bats and apparently provides up to 20% more power.

Placed in the arms of a bully like Hayden, the combination proved irresistible. The former Australian opener even tormented Delhi by starting his innings with a conventional bat. After warming up with three boundaries in his first eight balls, he called for the Mongoose.

And Delhi became his cobra as the bowling was flayed to all corners of the ground. Hayden, not someone who really needs extra power, smashed six fours and seven sixes off his first 35 balls with his new beast bat.

I may just be a disgruntled Delhisupporter but the odds are already heavily against bowlers today with flat pitches and small grounds, and in T20 that seems to be exacerbated. So, I’m not sure if providing the bat equivalent of a cluster bomb to gorging batsmen is entirely fair. Maybe the stump height should be increased or the ball made smaller, or hell maybe batsmen should have to bat blindfolded in T20 to even things up?

Anyway, it is confirmed Delhi Daredevils and Liverpool FC are one and the same thing. Maybe the Delhi owners could push some cash the way of Rafa Benitez? He certainly needs it.

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Where are the IPL Highlights? I Can’t Find Them

David Siddall — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:17:26 +0000

That is the question on the lips of every cricket fan around the world right now. Let me explain…

A few weeks back the IPL struck a partnership with YouTube (and therefore Google) to stream all the games and also put up the IPL highlights after every game. Well up until game number 6 they’ve honoured that agreement with all the highlights on their Youtube Channel. But game 7 and 8 were played last night with scintillating knocks from Jacques Kallis and M. S Dhoni and still they haven’t given us good cricket fans the chance to relive all that entertainment. NO HIGHLIGHTS!

You can watch Indian Premier League 2010 with TVN Sports but of course you have to pay a small fee to see all the games plus the highlights.

The IPL should be on top of this issue and give all cricket fans the opportunity to watch these exciting matches. I don’t know really what’s going on with the situation but I reckon it would be wise to make a comment on the IPL Youtube Channel to make sure they put up all the highlights right after they happen.

They owe cricket fans that much…

PS. their Youtube channel is really clustered and really annoying to navigate around so we are putting all the vital match action and IPL Highlights embedded in one place. I really want to see the action as much as anyone else but it’s on in the middle of the night in Australia. Rant over.

Brett Lee Retires from Test Cricket

David Green — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:58:33 +0000

One of the most vivid memories of recent cricket history was when Andrew Flintoff found time amidst the euphoria and hullabaloo of victory to console Brett Lee after England had scraped home by two runs at Edgbaston in 2005.

Flintoff recognised a fellow warrior when he saw one and as throughout his career in the baggy green, Lee had given absolutely everything for his country and nearly shepherded them to another famous victory; one that would have undoubtedly retained the urn for Australia. Lee was to be similarly disappointed after an heroic bowling spell, with Shane Warne operating at the other end, also saw Australia fall just short at Trent Bridge two tests later.

Defeat was a rarity in a test career that started in 1999 with Australia dominant and ended just as his country’s crown had slipped with series defeats in India and at home to South Africa in 2008. Lee took 310 wickets in 76 tests, which is good enough but all the more impressive considering he had to share the spoils with McGrath, Gillespie and Warne for most of his career.

It was to Australia’s chagrin and England’s relief that Lee did not participate in the Ashes last summer, having been injured for the first four tests and then overlooked for the Oval decider. The surface in that final test was perfect for Lee’s express pace and penchant for reverse swing, and if he had played the outcome could well have been very different. Certainly, Lee showed in the ODIs that followed the tests, as well as the Champions Trophy in South Africa and the T20 Champions League in India that he could still be a devastating match-winning bowler.

And it is 50 over and T20 cricket that will now be the limit for Lee after he announced his retirement from test cricket earlier today. Like Flintoff, this decision is simply down to injuries taking their toll rather than any ambivalence to test cricket. Lee ruefully explained that “Obviously, there’s specialist one-day and Twenty20 bowlers, but for me, Test cricket is where it’s at. There’s a lot of luck in Twenty 20, a lot of skill and a bit of luck in one-dayers. But Test cricket is a test for the bowlers and a test for the batsmen.”

Lee will be missed from test cricket, although this Pom believes it gives England a better chance of retaining the Ashes next winter. Ricky Ponting provided a fitting epitaph when he said of Lee’s career “If we all just take a minute and think about what he’s put himself through in that 10 or 12 years, running 35 metres to bowl every ball, bowling every ball at close to 150kph, and putting his heart on the line every ball he bowls, this bloke deserves a massive pat on the back.”

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India vs South Africa 1st ODI Review

Suyash Srivastava — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:20:44 +0000

India 298 for 9 (Raina 58, Sehwag 46, Karthik 44, Kallis 3-29) beat South Africa 297 (Kallis 89, Parnell 49, Jadeja 2-29) by one run

Thriller! Superb match! Everybody thought the match was over with the departure of Jacques Kallis but the tail enders (Dale Steyn and Wayne Parnell) gave it a nail biting finish! India clinched it by one run in a final ball thriller.

So close, yet so far. When will the lady luck shower her blessings on South Africa?

Brilliant final over bowled by PK under tremendous pressure. Even the captain cool MS Dhoni had worried expressions when his strike bowlers were being whacked all over the ground by the South African tail Enders.

With the departure of Kallis, the result was predictable, Indian fans started to celebrate. It was though a momentary pleasure. Dale Steyn (35 off 19 balls), who went wicketless, decided to make his presence felt with the bat. A match that looked like it would never deliver a close finish went on to be a thriller! South Africa had to once again face bad luck despite the late heroics from Steyn and Parnell.

It turned out a match of the finest of margins. Had Tendulkar not been so committed fielding off the second to last ball would India have won? Had it not been for that brilliant dive by Abhishek saving three precious runs in the slog overs, would South Africa have emerged the victors? In a match where the victory margin is of just one run, every effort counts!

Well those who saw the match will realize how close it was! For the others India leads the series 1-0. It was good to see a team effort throughout the game from both the sides. The Indian scorecard had contributions from all (unfortunately, except Tendulkar), but didn’t his effort win the match for India?

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Shoaib Akhtar Shocker

David Green — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:31:06 +0000

Another Shoaib Akhtar comedy moment

It seems that Shoaib Akhtar is more interested in making us laugh nowadays than hurling cricket balls at 100 miles per hour.

First there was the revelation from the PCB that Shoaib would miss the World T20 in England last year due to genital warts.

Then came the story that he had undergone a liposuction operation and would miss cricket for three months; ruling him out of the tours to New Zealand and Australia.

Now he has been quoted as saying that he wants to be the Pakistan captain, which is as preposterous as it is hilarious.

Pakistan may be desperate with the cricket ball eating Afridi, the ‘I need a break’ Younis and the squabbling toddlers Yousuf and Malik to choose from. But surely they are not THAT desperate?

Just keep the laughs coming Shoaib.