Willowists,
Noted that MJ Clarke had an outstanding tournament at the Twenty20 World Cup.
Pup’s figures speak for themselves:
6 matches, 3 innings, 8 runs, highest score of 5, and the superlative average of 2.66.
Obviously not his format, and the tour selectors appeared to have agreed, by batting him way down the order.
Heaven help the kiddie if he was ever asked to roll his arm over in the super short version of the game – he would be murdered.
Or perhaps the attached photograph with the “busty brunette” might have had something to do with it.
Poor Lara was in tears upon sighting it, according to the Daily Telegraph, so it must be true.
He could quite easily have played all his strokes before he got to the ground.
Twenty20 is no doubt the way of the future.
Knew that from my first encounter with the phenomenon maybe four seasons back now, in the week before Christmas, the NSW squad found themselves with nothing to do, so put together two XI’s for a charity Twenty20 at Hurstville Oval.
The ground was absolutely jammed packed, and dozens of kiddies with baseball mits were parked on the velodrome which runs around the oval to try and catch balls launched over the boundary and claim their prize of a framed signed photograph of the Strayan one-day XI.
Helped too that The Sandman was the ground announcer.
Also remember a very enjoyable afternoon with the children in the Bob Stand at North Sydney Oval [the perfect ground for Twenty20, tiny as it is] two seasons back, when Brad Haddin, I think it was, really got onto one, that was still going up as it left the ground’s perimeter fence, cleared a big stand of Port Jackson fig trees, and as we later learned, came to earth on the steps of a nearby church, narrowly missing clocking a newlywed couple who were being confettied at the time.
Now that’s entertainment.
Perhaps Pup will find more success on this ridiculous tour of India to get underway on the weekend.
Seven one day games -- count ‘em – seven, in seven different cities, over three weeks, with a Twenty20 game to finish off.
There was a little birdie singing a while back that the Strayan players wanted the whole thing called off as a complete joke and outrageous waste of time.
They were told that it was a naked money grubbing exercise to rip off the vast Indian television audience, and that no, it will go ahead.
The test players will miss the first Milk Cup game while in India, and will then return for just the one first class game before they go headlong into the test series against the Sri Lanka.
Now that’s a fantastic preparation for serious cricket, isn’t it?
And what chance have the selectors got?
Given that they are not being called on to tinker around the edges as usual – the chairman and the three wise men have some major league decisions to make, like the small matters of:
Who is going to open the bowling?
Who is going to open the batting?
Who is going to be the slow bowler, if indeed, we need a spinner?
Consider that Australia played its last test match ten months ago and on that occasion the team comprised:
ML Hayden, JL Langer, RT Ponting, MEK Hussey, MJ Clarke, A Symonds, AC Gilchrist, SK Warne, B Lee, SR Clark, GD McGrath.
Craven.
