Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 36
November 10, 2022
World domination eludes India again in World T20 despite abundant riches | Geoff Lemon
Indian cricket shapes the world game yet they have now gone 11 years without a trophy as big game misjudgments continue to cost them
Indian cricket should be dominating world cricket. By bank balance it already is: the last Indian Premier League deal went for more than US$6bn, the season will soon expand to 94 matches, its timeframe will eat up more of the southern season, pushing earlier into March and perhaps even February. Its franchises have already taken January by buying up new leagues in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, the same organisations are eyeing up The Hundred in England and the Big Bash in Australia should private investment be invited, and as salary caps increase they will soon be able to pay players amounts that even the richest national boards cannot match.
For all of that, hegemony on the field has not yet been established. Logic suggests that it will: the success of the Indian Premier League means that scouts are now touring their own vast country, searching for new talent to be developed, while more players in lower competitions give their all to chase the possibility of a cricket career with so many more jobs available. The players selected are put into high-level professional environments, training with some of the best coaches and teammates in the world. Every advance made by a local player benefits the Indian national setup.
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November 6, 2022
How Australia’s T20 World Cup title defence fell apart piece by piece | Geoff Lemon
Australia were on home soil and barely changed from their triumph 12 months ago, but never got going in this tournament
So the end came not with a bang, but with a series of whimpers. Defending champions, the home team, and still punted from the Twenty20 World Cup in the group stage, Australia’s early finish was put in place piece by piece.
The hosts couldn’t stop Ireland or Afghanistan from smashing runs, and couldn’t rack up a big enough score to dominate either. Failure was confirmed when a limp England flopped past Sri Lanka, in turn passing Australia to claim a semi-final spot that neither team really deserved.
Continue reading...November 4, 2022
Australia squeeze past Afghanistan but T20 World Cup hopes hang by thread
Australia went into their final group match of the Twenty20 World Cup with an ambitious yet straightforward task: execute the perfect mugging of Afghanistan in Adelaide to boost their own net run rate for the tournament ahead of England’s. In the end they barely escaped with a win, as a late Rashid Khan assault all but stole the pursuit of 168 for eight in the final over, falling four runs short on 164 for seven.
Australia’s fate is now in other hands, with their only path to the semi-finals requiring a Sri Lanka win over England on Saturday.
Continue reading...November 3, 2022
Australia wary of ‘pushing too hard’ in crucial bid to improve T20 World Cup run rate
One day before Australia’s final T20 World Cup group match, captain Aaron Finch was doing the maths. “I’m not bad when it’s in cricket terms. When it’s anything else – maths wasn’t my best subject at school. One thing that I love is when they have a runs per over required when you’re chasing … it’s never been my strong point.”
His first set of calculations involved sore hamstrings: “maybe 70-30” was how he assessed the likelihood that his injury will let him play. Batting finisher Tim David was “in exactly the same boat”, the pair showing similar results on their scans. Both would be put through a workout from medical staff to assess whether they can endure the rigours of an international match.
Continue reading...November 1, 2022
Australia face tall but not mathematically impossible task to keep T20 hopes alive | Geoff Lemon
Run rate shapes as kingmaker with the World Cup hosts, along with New Zealand and England, expected to bank final-round wins
And now, the end is near. And so we face the final curtain. A bit dramatic for the end of the group stages of a Twenty20 World Cup, but soon eight teams out of a dozen will be heading home or to their next assignments, thinking about what might have been and the disappointment of what wasn’t. And in Group 1, at least, the matter of which two teams get to stay a little longer will come down to pure and beautiful arithmetic.
Arriving at this tournament, England and Australia would have been worldly enough to know that they couldn’t expect to walk out of this group. They were diplomatic enough to cite every opponent as a tough competitor who could beat them on a given day. They were seasoned enough to know that this was true. And in their hearts, they would still have known that they should be the two to progress. The two biggest and best-resourced teams, one the host, the other the pace-setter in short form cricket for the last seven years.
Continue reading...T20 World Cup Super 12s: England beat New Zealand by 20 runs – as it happened
England remain in the hunt for the semi-finals after a 20-run win over New Zealand at the Gabba
6th over: England 48-0 (Buttler 8, Hales 37) Almost a blinder from Williamson! Buttler backs away and slashes Santner over the off side. Williamson runs back with the flight of the ball and dives full length. Gets it in both hands, spills into the air, and it hits the ground as he lands before bouncing back into his hands while he slides forward. He gets up and signals to the umpire that it might be a catch but he isn’t sure. They check the replay and confirm the bobble off the grass. Most surprisingly, England didn’t even take a run. Buttler had just started walking off. The over ends up costing eight runs, with a Hales pull for four.
End of the Powerplay, Hales has made it a great one for England.
Continue reading...October 31, 2022
Australia secure win over Ireland in T20 World Cup – but still have work to do
Australia started their night in Brisbane needing to pulverise Ireland. There were no two ways about it: not in the fourth of five matches in the T20 World Cup group stage, with the chunk of net run rate that the hosts needed to make up on England. Midway through the night, that chance was there, with Ireland 25 for five in reply to a mid-range 179. By the end of the night it had slipped away, with young Irish wicketkeeper Lorcan Tucker playing an innings of consummate class to score 71 not out and take Ireland to 137 all out: not a winning total but enough to leave a mark on Australia’s campaign.
The first stick in the spokes for the home side was Ireland winning the toss and choosing to bowl, given that a run-rate boost is more feasible when chasing a small target quickly, while batting first requires making a huge total to defend. The second was the opening batting – so long a point of strength, as Aaron Finch and David Warner have put on more than 1,700 T20 runs together over the course of a decade.
Continue reading...October 28, 2022
T20 World Cup fights to keep romance alive in face of uncomfortable truths | Geoff Lemon
A tournament sponsored by an oil supplier and beset by bad weather may struggle to build on excitement of early upsets
It must be difficult organising a major International Cricket Council event. You are tasked with bringing together the disparate corners of the cricket world in a festival of joyous inclusiveness, in a way that financially benefits Australia, England and India, the three most influential nations in the sport. You need a tense competitive format that makes sure that the most lucrative teams play lots of games before any risk of being eliminated.
You have to promote your message of saving the environment by filling the stadiums with recycling stations labelled with the oil sponsor that pumps out 12.3m barrels a day. In between times you advertise your charity partnership to support women and girls playing cricket, while the same oil company funds the Saudi monarchy and one of your top-ranked teams represents a nation ruled by the Taliban.
Continue reading...October 26, 2022
Australia and England meet on T20 World Cup precipice having both lost their bite | Geoff Lemon
A clash of the two old foes in their current state shapes as a struggle between teams looking to emerge from difficulty
As Friday evening approaches, bringing on the middle of the T20 World Cup group stage, the sense increases that this is the contest that both the English and Australian teams have been waiting for. India and Pakistan may have surpassed this rivalry for freneticism, ferocity, and sheer population, as shown by the crowd of more than 90,000 that sold out the Melbourne Cricket Ground for their own group stage bout. England and Australia won’t get quite that many through the gates, but their rivalry will always be cricket’s original.
The game is now even spicier, though, by effectively becoming an early knockout for both teams. Australia’s loss to New Zealand can’t strictly be classed as an upset – the Kiwis have made the finals of the last two 50-over World Cups, the last T20 World Cup, and are current holders of the World Test Championship. But even these consistently successful New Zealanders have still been consistently poor when meeting Australia, so a barnstorming win on these shores was a surprise.
Continue reading...October 23, 2022
T20 World Cup 2022 Super 12s: Kohli drives India to win over rivals Pakistan – as it happened
The fireworks go off – the literal ones – and the bowl of the MCG is filled with smoke. It dissipates quickly in the cool swirling Melbourne air. This is October, not yet summer, so it’s not freezing but it’s on the brisk side.
So much of today’s result will come down to the pairing between Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan at the top of Pakistan’s batting order. They are the most prolific pair in history, with 2313 runs together for Pakistan at an average of 53.
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