Regular visitors to SportTrades Report might remember a fortnight or so ago we announced a new Cricket feature coming to the blog called 'Outside The Long Room'. It's being produced by SportTrades very own James Drew who will be giving his thoughts on all things cricket including international and domestic news. Throughout the summer we're be hearing more from Mr Drew with updates on his local side, Breadsall Cricket Club who play in the Derbyshire County Cricket League.In this week's OTLR (hows that for an acronym) James previews the ICC World Twenty20 in the wake of the IPL finishing and reviews the start of the County Championship which has seen his favourite county side Derbyshire start of well winning 2 out of their first 3 games. Australian overseas start Chris Rogers has continued his fine form from last season with 3 hundreds so far.
Anyway i'll leave the talking to James, so to speak.
Seeing as it’s been well over a couple of weeks since my initial blog, I feel that now is the right time to share with you all my latest thoughts on all things cricket related.
On the International stage, with the final of the IPL (Indian Premier League) now all over other than the aftermath of charges surrounding Lalit Modi’s conduct, of which, I’m not going to speculate on or pass comment, all eyes will now head west (depending on where you located on the globe of course), to the ICC World Twenty20 in the Caribbean.
Going back to the IPL, the tournament was won by the Chennai Super Kings who beat the Mumbai Indians by 22 runs on Sunday just gone. SK Raina picked up the man of the match award, mainly as a result of scoring the only 50 in the match with a brisk 57 off just 35 balls and he also picked up a wicket too in Mumbai’s reply. Having only won half of their fourteen matches during the league stages, Chennai definitely saved their better cricket for the latter stages of the competition, especially as Mumbai had topped the group stages with ten wins from their fourteen matches.
The little master “Sachin Tendulkar”, captain of the Mumbai Indians ran away with the award of player of the tournament, largely down to finishing the tournament as the leading run scorer. Whether cricket lovers around the world are in favour of the IPL or not, based on its growing success it appears that it is hear to stay I’m afraid. Exciting matches played in front of bumper crowds with the best one-day players in the world competing against one another is bound to have its fans, though it appears that the jury is still out for many of the traditionalists amongst us.
Moving onto the ICC World Twenty20. The 17 day tournament with 12 teams (4 groups of 3) starts tommroow. For those who remember, Pakistan won the event last year held in England before the Ashess series started. Pakistan sadly have been affected by political and internal issues of late, which has resulted in many of the best and most senior players receiving hefty bans. That said, recent tournaments suggest that you can’t right Pakistan off, and if the forecasted early thunderstorms for the tournament remain out in the middle and not spread to the Pakistani dressing room, then they could be pushing all the way to retain their title. One thing that any cricket fan should never do is write of Shahid Afridi although everyone can certainly expect the unpredictable from the one the Pakistani fans call Boom Boom.
Australia and South Africa are both strong favourites too, though last years tournament shows that if you do slip up in one of your two group matches, teams could be packing their bags and heading home much sooner than planned.
A big shame for the Ozzies is hearing that Brett Lee, having retired from test cricket to concentrate on one-day cricket so to prolong his career is now injured again, so will therefore miss the tournament. It's a blow to the popular player but Australia can call on Yorkshire's Ryan Harris who has broken into the team of late. Even without Lee, they still have enough fire power with the ball and down the innings with the bat, I predict that Mitchell Johnson, Cameron White and Shane Watson will all have a good world cup.
Turning my attention to the 4 “minnows” of the competition: Ireland, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, well, I expect them all to impress, but I can’t see any surprises this year I’m afraid, and I feel that non of these 4 teams will make the Super 8 stage. It's a tremendous achievement that the Afghan team qualifed for the tournament after many years of struggle back in their own country, now they have a chance to play on the big stage. Every cricket fan will wish them luck.
With regards England, then I’m really looking forward to see how our adopted sons from SA perform at the top of the order (Michael Lumb and Craig Kieswetter that is), with the hard-hitting Lumb having impressed recently in the IPL. Coupled with KP, Eoin Morgan and Paul Collingwood, I feel that batting wise we look as strong on paper as any other team (if that’s ever a useful measure to use), though our lack of regular 20/20 International experience in the bowling department could be our Achilles Heel in going all the way. I do like what Graeme Swann brings to the party with the ball, and let’s hope he can put his recent run-in with the law to one side and show the rest of our bowlers the way to do it to bring some much needed one-day success. England also have Sussex's Michael Yardy in the squad so if the situation were to arise England have a reliable option should they wish to play a second spinner.
The big questions for the tournament, that everyone is seemingly asking are: Will there be six sixes in an over, will any team manage to post more than 300 in one innings, will Jacques Kallis’ strike rate be more than 50, will any of the West Indian players end up arguing amongst themselves on the pitch and will the Ozzies be the first team to be knocked out of the competition?!?! Only time will tell in what promises to be a couple, and a bit, weeks worth of fast and furious entertaining cricket.
Jumping back to the domestic scene, the weather has managed to hold it’s own for now, with hardly any matches being affected by the weather so far (Let’s hope I’ve not just made the mother of all curses there!). After all both the Rose Counties have been affected by the weather in recent years costing them a decent crack at the Championship.
Speaking of the Championship and the Rose counties, Yorkshire are occupying top spot in the LV Division 1 table with 2 wins and a draw from their 3 games. They're also going pretty well againgst title holders Durham racking up a mammoth 610-6 againgst a good bowling attack. With stars like Jaques Rudolph, Ajmal Shazhad, Tim Bresnan, Andrew Gale and Adil Rashid, Yorkshire fans have to be omptimistic of a first championship since 2001 when they beat Surrey for the title.
So far Durham have not lived up to not just my expectations (as i tipped them to do well) but everyone's expectations. They've been have been pretty hit and miss in their matches, and were somewhat lucky to avoid defeat againgst promoted Essex in their second game. Still though you cannot rule the double-champions out as there are still loads of matches to go though, so it’s worth remembering that things could all change rather sharply!
Both Notts and Lancs have also started the season well, both winning two from two so far, whilst at the other end of the table Somerset, Warwickshire and Hampshire have all lost their first two matches.
In Division two, Sussex have started the season very strongly, and it looks like that come Thursday evening they will have won all four of their opening matches, unless Leicestershire, who have equally started the season strongly can form the come back of all come backs in the second innings. My team (Derbyshire) have not let me down so far, other than a defeat to local neighbours Leicestershire, though they’ve won their other two matches so far and have started strongly away at Northants in the latest round of matches too. In the defeat to Leicester, then it was Derby born Wayne White who spoiled the day for the home side, coming back to haunt his former team with his maiden first class ton. He’s also been equally impressive with the ball so far this season.
The South-East counties of both Surrey and Middlesex have both started pretty badly, with no wins in their games so far with Middlesex having lost both their opening games and Surrey drawing one and losing two. Gloucestershire have faired no better so far either, losing both of their opening games though have the edge slightly over Middlesex in the game that’s currently being played between both counties. Surrey’s last match did see lots of runs at the picturesque Whitgift School, and almost pulled off a win. The game did see skipper Rory Hamilton-Brown (who I commented on last time around), smash a century, and there were also runs from wicket-keeper batsman Steven Davies and the best dancing English qualified batsman the country still has to offer (that’s Mark Ramprakash).The best individual performance of the season so far has to be from Middlesex’s freakishly tall quickie Steven Finn (pictured left). First game of the season away at Worcestershire (New Road), he bettered his impressive 5-69 in the first innings with an amazing 9-37 in the second.
Despite his overall match figures of 14-106 in the match, Middlesex lost the game by 111 runs, but what a start to the season for the big man, and has one again showed the England selectors what he’s capable of. In my mind, he could easily fill the gap/s that’s been left by both Steve Harmison and Freddie Flintoff in recent years and become England’s premier strike bowler.
I’ll be back in a couple of week’s time with more of my cricket thoughts, probably when the Twenty20 World Cup is nearing the final stages and will also give you my thoughts on how the newly created Clydesdale Bank 40 over comp has gone so far by then too, so bye for now!
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