Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 37
October 23, 2022
T20 World Cup 2022 Super 12s: Kohli drives India to win over rivals Pakistan – live reaction
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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October 22, 2022
T20 World Cup: New Zealand outclass hosts Australia in Super 12 opener
Less than a year ago, New Zealand felt yet another global trophy slip from their grasp as Australia mowed down a decent chase of 173 without breaking a sweat in the 2021 final. To start this year’s T20 World Cup, the Kiwis laid into Australia with an extra level of ferocity, racking up 200 for the cost of only three wickets before defending it with aplomb. Holding the chase to just 111 closed out the first upset of the Super 12 stage, and put a severe dent in the home team’s tournament plans.
It was the young opener Finn Allen who introduced the cat to Australian pigeons. Facing up to Patrick Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood would be an intimidating option for any Test opener, but Allen took on all of them within the first three overs. He took Starc down the ground, Hazlewood through cover, and Cummins over square leg. After facing 13 of the 18 balls bowled, he had 35 runs and New Zealand had 46. Another monster straight hit off Marcus Stoinis took Allen to 42 from 16 balls by the time Hazlewood hit his stumps.
Continue reading...October 19, 2022
Australia look to familiar blueprint in bid for back-to-back T20 World Cup titles | Geoff Lemon
The reigning champions are not expected to stray too far from the template that delivered success last year
For decade upon decade, Australian selectors have leant to the conventional. Three quicks and a spinner, your best bat is captain, wicketkeeper at seven in Test cricket or pushed up to throw the bat as an opener in the shorter forms. Occasionally circumstances or an unusual player might shift this around, but it tends to quickly revert to the mean.
Having George Bailey in charge has led to an occasional willingness to be different. His days as a player and captain showed that, and those days are recent enough that he personally knows the strengths of most current players. It was Bailey’s plan to have Scott Boland play in last year’s MCG Ashes Test, a masterstroke as Boland hoovered up wickets at an 1880s bowling average over the next three matches. There has been talk of picking batters for next year’s India tour based on strength against spin rather than incumbency, in a departure from failed orthodoxy. It has indeed been an unusual combination of circumstance and player that led to fast bowler Pat Cummins taking charge of the Test and one-day teams, but that would not likely have happened with a traditionalist chairing the selection meetings.
Continue reading...October 17, 2022
Aaron Finch finds form but Australia lose T20 World Cup warm-up to India
Australia and India finished off their T20 World Cup preparations in a warm-up match at an empty Gabba ground in Brisbane, won by India by six runs in a contest that lacked much intensity until the frantic final stages. Australia looked set to win when Aaron Finch was chasing India’s 186-7, needing 16 runs required from 12 balls. But the captain’s dismissal for 76 presaged a passage of play that saw Australian wickets fall from each of the final four balls of the match, Australia finishing all out for 180.
The World Cup hosts won the toss and chose to bowl, picking Mitchell Starc and Patrick Cummins but leaving out Josh Hazlewood from the pace trio that will be first choice through the tournament proper. That gave Kane Richardson a final chance to press his case, using his changes of pace and length to finish with an innings-high 4-30. Ashton Agar played as the main spinner instead of Adam Zampa, but fared less impressively with 1-36.
Continue reading...October 14, 2022
Old rivals Australia and England circle Twenty20 World Cup seeking knockout punch | Geoff Lemon
After a series win in the warm-ups, England have upset Australia’s T20 World Cup favouritism
On arrival at Perth airport last week, wicketkeeper Matthew Wade said that his team’s heavy loss to England in last year’s Twenty20 World Cup group stage was “the lightbulb moment” that made the Australians change the way they approached the format and go on to win that tournament.
A week after Wade spoke in Perth, having endured three more beltings by England in the interim, it is reasonable to wonder whether the lightbulb is flickering.
Continue reading...October 8, 2022
Finch’s dangerously familiar Australia host an England T20 side in transition
World Cup warm-up series sees Jos Buttler fine-tune his team while Steve Smith’s spot is the hosts’ one question mark
There’s a pleasant sense of relief this week, as we head into an Australia-England cricket contest without an accompanying circus of hype.
Nobody is crowing about a limited-overs series constituting the Twenty20 Ashes, as the marketing departments might once have attempted. Instead the three matches between Sunday and Friday will be rightly seen as warm-ups for the T20 World Cup, even if they’re not part of the official warm-up program that will see Australia play once against India, and England once against Pakistan, before the tournament proper.
Continue reading...September 22, 2022
One town, one team: Hungry Cats create Geelong’s defining era
With loyal fans and smart leadership, Geelong have been the best team of the year, perhaps the decade. But they must win the 2022 AFL premiership on Saturday to truly cement their legacy
Geelong is a place that still has a sense of itself. Sure, Melbourne might be advancing down the highway, swallowing Werribee, sprawling towards Avalon in a way that could one day make the length of the Princes Highway a concrete conglomerate. But people from Geelong know that they are something different. They define themselves by it. Down that highway, out of the Melbourne footy fishbowl, Geelong Football Club offers one part of that sense of identity.
Geography doesn’t mean much in the AFL anymore. Modern-day Carlton is full of lawyers and the uni student children of wealth, not earthy Italian cafe owners shouting “Woof!” at Ang Christou. Collingwood, Richmond, North Melbourne, the ghosts of Fitzroy, all fuse into an inner-city conglomerate: the surviving commission flats form islands among the hipsters and artists who can still afford it and the rich dullards wanting that reflected coolness while complaining about the noise. Real estate parasites would place St Kilda, Essendon, Footscray, Hawthorn all within the most desirable inner band of a metropolis ballooning beyond. Most Melburnians who follow football now live in a Melbourne that football doesn’t represent.
Continue reading...September 17, 2022
AFL preliminary final 2022: Sydney Swans beat Collingwood Magpies – as it happened
Sydney will meet Geelong in the AFL grand final, after the Swans held off a courageous comeback by one point to win a thriller
1st quarter, 10 minutes remaining: Sydney 4.2 (26) to Collingwood 0.0 (0) Swans putting a lot of pressure on Collingwood whenever the Pies have possession, and it’s pressure by Reid on Noble, rushing from standing the mark after giving away a free kick, that forces a kick out on the full on Sydney’s half-back flank. The Swans by contrast are clean with disposal, and a long kick finds Papley on the 50 arc. His set shot goes a long way, straight through.
1st quarter, 13 minutes remaining: Sydney 3.1 (19) to Collingwood 0.0 (0) Heeney has been prominent early, but a kick slews off the outside of his boot as he tries to pump it inside 50. The Pies escape trouble for a time, but get back into trouble as Hickey gets a 50-metre penalty at half-back when the player on the mark doesn’t move back. Hickey bombs it to the goalsquare, Franklin brings it to ground, and Ryan Clarke is there front and centre to snap it home.
Continue reading...AFL preliminary final 2022: Sydney Swans v Collingwood Magpies – live
1st quarter, 10 minutes remaining: Sydney 4.2 (26) to Collingwood 0.0 (0) Swans putting a lot of pressure on Collingwood whenever the Pies have possession, and it’s pressure by Reid on Noble, rushing from standing the mark after giving away a free kick, that forces a kick out on the full on Sydney’s half-back flank. The Swans by contrast are clean with disposal, and a long kick finds Papley on the 50 arc. His set shot goes a long way, straight through.
1st quarter, 13 minutes remaining: Sydney 3.1 (19) to Collingwood 0.0 (0) Heeney has been prominent early, but a kick slews off the outside of his boot as he tries to pump it inside 50. The Pies escape trouble for a time, but get back into trouble as Hickey gets a 50-metre penalty at half-back when the player on the mark doesn’t move back. Hickey bombs it to the goalsquare, Franklin brings it to ground, and Ryan Clarke is there front and centre to snap it home.
Continue reading...August 6, 2022
England fall short in run chase as India reach Commonwealth Games T20 final
England will play for Commonwealth bronze in the women’s Twenty20, letting slip a golden opportunity in their semi-final against India.
With huge home support in a full house at Edgbaston, they survived a withering assault from Smriti Mandhana, who had India going at 10 runs per over while raising her fifty in 23 balls, before England pulled back the total to 164 for five.
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