Showing posts tagged t20

While James Tredwell and Michael Yardy floundered in the ODI against Australia and made excuses about their bowling not being suited to Australian conditions, one English bowler was ripping it up. Adil Rashid spear headed a three pronged spin attack for South Australia as they bamboozled their way to winning the Big Bash. Rashid really was at the centre of it all, often opening the bowling and putting together an impressive selection of variations.

This does come some what of a surprise, Rashid’s figures for Yorkshire point to greater success in the longer form of the game and his performances for England in ODI and T20 were lacklustre to say the least. It appears however with the right tactics and coaching that Rashid has exceeded all expectations with South Australia. It will be interesting to see if Yorkshire make use of their extensive spin options to “surprise” English counties in Twenty20 cricket this summer, let’s face it they haven’t got a great deal to lose Yorkshire’s Twenty20 record leaves a lot to be desired. Rashid though is starting to realise some of his promise, poorly managed by the England set-up in 2009 he is starting to regain some of his confidence, next summer promises to be a big one for him.

(Video via Last of the Summer Whine)

Who’s afraid of the MCG?

England are, unable to hit sixes until the 4th ball of the last over they seemed to be caught in the headlights obsessed with the size of the ground. Sure you should be taking advantage of the wide space to turn those singles into twos and run the odd three or four but you need to spread the field by taking boundaries first, you can’t run everything. Chris Woakes showed how it was done with a beautiful 101m hit but it was too late, Australia had restricted England well but it the lack of English ambition with the bat that lost it in the end.

Cricket blog: Drop Collingwood?

cricketblog:

This sounds really harsh to say on the back of only the first defeat in nine matches in T20 for England, where Paul Collingwood has Captained them to being the best side in the World and the T20 World Cup, but does he really deserve his place in the side?

Interesting piece if Collingwood can’t find form during the Cricket World Cup and subsequent IPL he will surely retire from from the international game. The last thing England need in the run up to the 2012 Twenty20 World Cup is their Captain fighting for form with his place in question. Colly is no mug and will surely recognise that he is fast becoming a liability to the team.

I don’t really see England changing the balance of their line-up, it won eight Twenty20 games on the trot fairly impressive for a format that can often seem something of a lottery. Given that the next two Twenty20 world cups are on the sub-continent we may see Luke Wright dropped for someone like Ian Blackwell, Samit Patel or Adil Rashid for an extra spin option. Although to be honest Luke Wright has a fight on his hand to retain his place for the one dayers, he’s not really proved his worth either in the warm up against the Prime Minister’s XI or in the T20 games.

For my money the captaincy would pass to Ian Bell should he manage to retain his place, he proved himself a very good stand in leader for Warwickshire and could easily lead England in all formats. The key being retaining his place, he’s easily a better batsman than Kieswetter or Lumb but can he translate it to T20 cricket?

(Reblogged from cricketblog)
This photo just about sums up Shane Watson’s day, destructive with both bat and ball he could easily have swung the game in Australia’s favour, without him Australia would have been a shambles. However Watson was powerless to resist his own frailties with the bat and the England’s seemingly never ending Twenty20 bandwagon. Alas if only Watson could bat past 60 Australia might well have walked it… View high resolution

This photo just about sums up Shane Watson’s day, destructive with both bat and ball he could easily have swung the game in Australia’s favour, without him Australia would have been a shambles. However Watson was powerless to resist his own frailties with the bat and the England’s seemingly never ending Twenty20 bandwagon.

Alas if only Watson could bat past 60 Australia might well have walked it…

England giving it away…

Serves me right for sledging Australia during a Twenty20 innings, but England are giving it away here.

Pietersen’s wicket was an unnecessary shot, needing just over a run a ball he’d already got ten off the first two balls and couldn’t content himself with manoeuvring it around having pushed the field back. Couple that with rash shots from Bresnan and Morgan and careless batting from Yardy has left the tail enders to mop it up. Credit to Australia for sticking in there but this should have been England’s from the moment they restricted Australia to 157.

Tension building…

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They’re catching them in the crowd get ‘em playing
Nassier Hussain sums up Australia’s dodgy catching to a tee, they’re letting England off the hook here.