Tag: T20

Sa v Oz – The T20 series

And for a change it is a series!

Three games, the first here today (12.30 gmt), followed by games in …

Durban on Wednesday (16.00gmt)

… and up in Pretoria on Friday (16.00 gmt)

The T20 world cup starts next week (March 16) in Bangladesh, so the importance of this series is not to be underestimated. Form players have to be found, combinations (bowling & batting) established, team tactics planned and executed but more on that closer to the time.

This week is all about what is described as “The Fierce Rivalry”

For those enthralled by the recent Proteas / Aussie test series the Proteas side will look distinctly familiar. Of the selected 16 man squad 9 players represented South Africa in the recent 3 tests.

However, familiar faces are few and far between in the Aussie camp, of the 16 names I see on the squad published for this week I only recognise 3 from the test squad! Horses for courses I suppose?

I mentioned on the Newlands test post that I wasn’t sure if I would be going to watch this one, guess what? Continue reading “Sa v Oz – The T20 series”

Boxing Day

No boxing today but plenty of CRICKET.

I’ll be spending the afternoon (14:30 start) in The Long Room at historic St. Georges Park with a view not too dissimilar to the one on the left.

It’s The Black Caps in the third and final T20i, with the teams currently tied at one match apiece we should be in for an entertaining game.

One advantage of The Long Room is that it is far from that infernal brass band who’s badly played 10 song repertoire (which gets played over and over) drives most of us to distraction. The band were actually glorified by Australia’s Ch9 commentary team this morning, they have obviously never spent an hour never mind a full day’s play within earshot of them!

Continue reading “Boxing Day”

ICC T20

They’ve started, (handy link to the official schedule here) there can only be one winner, so, what are you going to say if your team isn’t victorious?

Don’t worry, Alex Bowden over on ESPN’s Crickinfo has a list of ready made excuses for us.

Here they are…

Australia
They just weren’t tough enough. It’s not like the old days. This team just isn’t hard-nosed, aggressive or Australian enough. They don’t need to be any more talented. They just need to be angrier. Bring back Lillee and Thommo.

England
It was almost certainly the IPL. Not enough players are appearing in it and too many players want to appear in it. Secondly, Continue reading “ICC T20”

Eng vs S.A. (ODI’s)

.

The current ODI series between England and The Proteas will as you can see decide who tops the ICC rankings come Sept 5th.

Match 2 (of the 5 match series) a day / nighter starts at 12.00 GMT Tuesday 28th August, would you believe that the 1st game on Friday was washed out? With a 4 day break between matches why not have a reserve day? (or 2?) It’s time that the ‘men in suits’ who run the sport get with the programme!

But there’s more at stake then simply topping the ODI rankings for The Proteas.

Continue reading “Eng vs S.A. (ODI’s)”

NZ v SA T20

For a change it wasn’t us snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

In fact ½ way through the Black Caps innings I thought that it was all over and said as much on my ‘England’ post, then with 2 overs to go only 10 runs were needed for not only a New Zealand win but also the series, normally a fairly comfortable proposition.

But, cricket’s a funny ol’ game and just to prove it, what seemed like an apparent convincing loss turned into an improbable victory.

On the left is Marchant de Lange, the final over hero (2 wickets only 3 runs conceded) but that’s not what this post is about!

See the red ribbons on the sleeves? Today marks  the first anniversary of that terrible earthquake in Christchurch, in which 189 people lost their lives.

I found it hard to believe that it was ‘only’ 12 months ago, seems so much longer than that, good on the cricketers for reminding me.

NZ Herald article here