Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 50
November 4, 2021
Australia hammer Bangladesh: T20 World Cup – as it happened
It took Australia just 6.2 overs to reach a winning total in their run chase after skittling Bangladesh for just 73
4th over: Bangladesh 19-3 (Naim 12, Mahmudullah 0) Cummins on to bowl, as Australia keep rotating their bowlers. He’s the first who doesn’t immediately get a wicket. Not far off, as Mohammed Naim flashes a drive past Steve Smith at backward point. But Naim follows up with a much more controlled shot through cover, finding the fence with style.
3rd over: Bangladesh 10-3 (Naim 3, Mahmudullah 0) A wicket per over at the moment.
October 31, 2021
Alan Davidson and Ashley Mallett were Australian cricket’s gentlemen | Geoff Lemon
‘Davo’ in cricket circles only meant one person and cries of ‘Bowling, Ashley’ still ring out from behind the stumps
They come in ones, and occasionally in twos. We’re not talking about the run rate in the eras in which these gentlemen played, but the loss of two of Australian cricket’s gentlemen from this plane of existence. Alan Davidson, pioneering left-arm fast bowler in the age of Richie Benaud, died of natural causes aged 92 on Saturday morning. He followed Ashley Mallett, the leading off-spinner from Ian Chappell’s time, who died the previous evening of cancer aged 72.
Before Davidson’s debut in 1953, Test ranks had seen very few left-arm quicks with careers of substance – George Hirst and Bill Voce are the two that stand out. Compare that to today when left-armers proliferate, and you may draw a link with the period when school teachers stopped caning the fingers of children for writing left-handed. He produced swing at pace, operating with the new ball and making use of his unusual line. He also batted dependably, spending most of his career at No 7 and averaging just under 25.
Continue reading...October 30, 2021
Crushing defeat leaves Australia’s Twenty20 shortcomings exposed | Geoff Lemon
Top two teams in Group 1 at World Cup have been narrowed decisively to the top one – and it most certainly isn’t Australia
If you wish for something hard enough, according to some self-help books based upon little more than the songwriting of Pinocchio, it just might come true. So went the script in the T20 World Cup, but the wrong way for Australia: a team relying on a Test configuration that was undone at the start by England’s Test‑style bowling.
When facing them there is a range of T20 options to consider. The ripping leg spin of Adil Rashid, who opened proceedings in Dubai and bowled three dot balls in a first over that went for six runs. The left-arm variety of Tymal Mills, who can peak at the speeds that get you pulled over on the motorway or drop back to the pace of a golf cart on the fairway. The fizzing straight-breaks of Liam Livingstone, who went for 15 runs from four overs. Or the loopier variety of Moeen Ali, who was not used but could have been at any moment.
Continue reading...October 29, 2021
Australia and England renew acquaintance in tasty T20 World Cup appetiser | Geoff Lemon
The main course for these nations may still be the Ashes, but first is the small matter of a crunch 20-over clash in Dubai
It’s that time again. The oldest grudge match in cricket. A contest spanning centuries. The Twenty20 Ashes. Too much? Yes, alright. Still, it is gently amusing that while the cricket reporters and fanbases of those two countries are gearing up for a Test series that won’t start for over two months, international cricket’s founding nations of the 1800s will play off at the entirely 21st century T20 World Cup.
Both sides have won both of their matches so far in run chases that should have ranged from a stroll in the park to a social hike up a gentle incline, although each ended up puffing and blowing more than they should have in one of their respective ascents. Their wins have been based on the work of their bowlers as well as switched-on fielding, with neither side having to go full tilt with the bat. They will play off for top spot in Group 1 on Saturday night. Despite their similar campaigns, Australia and England will launch into the contest in decidedly different ways.
Continue reading...October 28, 2021
David Warner’s knock provides platform for opener to kick on at T20 World Cup | Geoff Lemon
One innings does not a definitive return to form make but life certainly looks a lot rosier for the Australia opener after a brisk 65 runs from 42 balls
In the ficklest format that is 20-over cricket, no one is ever really gone, and no one is ever really back. The best scoring streak can be interrupted by a miscue, the longest struggle can give way to a day when a player makes good contact with a few big swings. Still, those running Australia’s team would have watched with some relief as David Warner ran up 65 runs from 42 balls in Dubai on Thursday night, the central contribution to chasing Sri Lanka’s 154 and giving Australia two wins from two at the T20 World Cup. For a few days, Warner can enjoy the feeling that perhaps he is back indeed.
In a weird couple of years for almost everyone on the planet, it has been a weird couple of cricketing years for Warner. For almost a decade he had played relentlessly: across formats from his T20 debut in 2009 until his 12-month suspension in March 2018, nobody played more matches or scored more runs across for Australia. In the same span he played all nine editions of the Indian Premier League, a couple in the Big Bash, Sheffield Shield fixtures in eight seasons, four 50-over state cups, five Australia A matches, two Champions Leagues, and a couple of T20 tournaments in England and New Zealand.
Continue reading...October 24, 2021
Not so fast: Australia’s pace worked but spin will be vital at T20 World Cup | Geoff Lemon
In Australia, you don’t so much pick an XI as fill gaps around those who aren’t allowed to be left out
When it comes to having a cricket philosophy, Australia’s is marked by a deep stubbornness on any number of matters that, depending on the case, can range from endearing to aggravating. At its best, it reflects loyalty, determination, self-belief; at its worst, hierarchical obeisance and damaging inflexibility. At its core is a belief in the exceptionalism of its players.
Getting overly technical or detailed with tactics or selection is treated as emasculatory. Even worse if other nations have set the lead, given their cricket is to Australians naturally inferior. The mindset is explicable given the decades of Australia winning in bulk, to the point that it no longer mattered whether it happened because of or in spite of the prevailing attitude – the correlation was deemed causative enough.
Continue reading...October 21, 2021
Mix-and-match Australia face tough assignment at T20 World Cup | Geoff Lemon
The world’s best have been honing their 20-over games since 2016 but it is hard to draw the impression that Australia have done the same
Once upon a time, picking an Australian limited-overs team was easy. You could drop a captain like Mark Taylor or Steve Waugh because there was a rank of replacements waiting for that spot. Your all-rounder could be Andrew Symonds or Ian Harvey or Shane Lee. Bat Michael Bevan at five or at six? Put your wicketkeeper up to open? Test spearhead like Glenn McGrath or white-ball operator like Nathan Bracken? It didn’t really matter. Whatever you did, Australia would mostly win.
That was in 50-over cricket. Since the third format arrived, condensed to 20, Australia’s selectors have stared at it with brows furrowed in puzzlement, like Brendan Fraser’s time-travelling Cro-Magnon man trying to comprehend toothpaste. Most often, the approach has more or less been to pick the Test pace attack, one leg-spinner, and the most prolific Big Bash run-scorers, with a couple of hierarchy picks of Test batters who don’t have time to play domestic short stuff. We’ll see it again at this year’s T20 World Cup.
Continue reading...October 13, 2021
Indian contingent promises excitement as Australia gears up for WBBL season seven| Geoff Lemon
A new generation of young and clear-eyed strikers are set to light up the Big Bash for the first time
When the Women’s Big Bash League fires up on Thursday for its seventh season, there will be a notable change to the previous six. While domestic Twenty20 leagues for men or women anywhere in the world have an international flavour, India’s influence outside its own Premier League is minimal. This year, though, will be the Indian edition, as eight players from the emerging power of women’s cricket suit up for Big Bash sides.
When the competition launched in late 2015 with eight teams to fill, depth of talent was a problem. Topping up rosters from overseas was a partial solution, but most international teams had a standard below Australia’s domestically. Most imports came from England, having been the first country with professional contracts for women. New Zealand was next, for proximity and convenience, and the best of the South Africans were picked off the top. So far the league has featured 18 English players, 13 New Zealanders and nine South Africans, compared to four Caribbean players, two Irish, and one each from Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Continue reading...October 10, 2021
Australia beat India in final T20 to end series on a high– as it happened
3rd over: Australia 18-1 (Mooney 14, Lanning 0) Pandey to continue, but the left-hander doesn’t find her difficult at all. Mooney opens the face of her bat to slash four behind square, then steps forward to cover-drive another. Third ball in the sequence, Mooney picks it up off her legs and flicks behind square. Renuka Singh is half a chance to catch it out there, but doesn’t time her approach to the ball and then lets the half-volley through her to the rope. The number of boundaries that India could have saved in this series could have been the difference between winning and losing it.
2nd over: Australia 5-1 (Mooney 1, Lanning 0) The Aussie skipper to the crease, and defends the final ball of the over.
October 9, 2021
Ashes series gets green light amid familiar and inevitable fractiousness | Geoff Lemon
We’ve already had the first exchanges of chippiness and the start of the actual cricket now cannot come soon enough
The Ashes series is go. Sort of. Kind of. The Ashes series is confirmed as long as various requirements are met when it comes to quarantining and playing in Australia. Which is effectively the same position that the England & Wales Cricket Board has been taking for the last few months, before Friday’s statement officially conveying the above. The important thing is that now they have said they actually will be going to Australia. Unless later they decide they are not. In which case they will say that they are not. Crowds are warmly invited to book tickets on this basis.
We can tell that an Ashes series is imminent, though, because like the first reddening leaves of autumn tell the season, there are the first exchanges of chippiness from prominent names over airwaves and online platforms. Tim Paine and Nathan Lyon have huffed on radio at England’s prevarication. English commentators have rolled out their disdain for Paine as not a proper cricketer.
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