Too Many Games, Not Enough Openers, Still Too Much Hauritz

Australia are playing cricket at the moment. Just thought I'd tell you, becuase noone seems to know or care. They are in Abu Dhabi playing Pakistan in a series of 50 over games. How many pointless ODIs are being played these days? Is anyone outside (or even inside, given the (SA)IPL is on) cricket mad India actually watching these games? In more relevant (and still not blogged about becuase I've been blogging about DT) cricket, we still don't know who the best test side in the world is after Australia beat South Africa 2-1, flipping the scoreline in Australia. There were then 2 T20s and 5 ODIs (after 2 and 5 in Australia). Why do we need this many ODI games? Everyone knows that the only ODI matches that count for anything are the World Cup (and theres far too many games there too). For the record, SA won most of the ODI games and Australia still didn't play Phil Hughes in any of them. This scheduling has gone too far. 

The Aussies have played 708 Tests in 133 years, and 705 ODIs in 39 years. You could drop back the number of ODIs and stop the players bitching about playing too much cricket so easily. 

Now, at the moment the ODI side has any of Haddin, Clarke, Hopes and Watson opening. I'nm disregarding Marsh, becuase he seems to usually be playing, atleast when he isn't injured. None of these players are proper openers. So, clearly Australia must have no-one qualified for the job. Lets look at the candidates:

Phil Hughes:

Averaged 69 in the 3 tests he has played against SA, struck at 58 (Haydos struck at 60, so Hughesy isn't too slow for it). Why oh why is he not in the ODI side?

Matthew Hayden:

Forcefully retired from the test side, now averages 59 at 152 in 8 games in the IPL. In the past 2 years (takes in the last 16 ODIs he played) he averaged 42 and struck at 83. Some players are forced to only play in one form of the game (ie Bracken), why not give Haydos a chance again?

Or you could throw the Huss (Mike) up there where he used to play, and play him into some form. Except that he's being rested, because he has played too many ODIs lately...

How the hell is Hauritz averaging 29 and going for 4.8 an over in ODIs? Well, 14 of his 22(63%) wickets have come caught by a fielder (ie slogging and got caught on the boundary), and 2(9%) stumped (ie slogging and missed). In comparison, that sheik of tweak Michael Clarke has 51 wickets (yes, he has played more games, thats why I'm putting %s)  and 23 caught fielder (45%) with 3 stumped (6%). When it comes to a game that matters (hopefully not the Ashes), Hauritz will stink up the place worse than Bryce McGain's first day. 

In unrelated matters, Stephen Hill has done enough to get taken off the Shit List. 

Match Report - Australia vs New Zealand ODI, Adelaide 10/2/09

The Match report will be a section where I report on a match. That I've been too. Not too complex hey?

Today I saw Australia convincingly defeat NZ in the 4th Chappell-Hadlee game to lock the series at 2-2 heading into the decider on Friday. The highlights of the game were three great batting innings .First Ross Taylor (76 in better than even time) in the Kiwi's innings of 8/244 before Dave (79 at a strike rate of 82) and Mike (75 in better than even time) Hussey did the bulk of the chasing. Kyle Mills was the most impressive bowler in the match, proving impossible to get away and conceding only 30 runs from 9.2 overs.

NZ Innings:
An uncharacteristicly slow start from McCullum (playing despite his injuries) meant that the Kiwis struggled at around 3.5 runs an over for most of their innings. However, Ross Taylor opened up towards the end after the introduction of Cam White swayed the momentum away from the Aussies. White conceded 24 off 2 overs after strangly being brought on to help out Clarke as the 5th bowler (Clarke took 1/23 off 8 to have what someone looking at the scorecard at the end of the game would assume a best bowler performance). However, before White allowed the Kiwis the momentum, all of the 5 Aussie bowlers were going at less than 4 runs an over. The death bowliong was poor after this, allowing a defendable target when 210 was achievable for Australia. On the flip side, Taylor was very good, and Mills stayed with him in the death. Guptill and McCullum were servicable opening but were far too defensive.

Aussie Innings:
A slow start also for Australia, with Haddin and Clarke a makeshift opening combination again. Clarke fell reasonably quickly and Ponting followed with a slow, low scoring innings held tight by Mills. At this point, the game was slipping away from Australia. Dave Hussey had achieved only modest returns and some were questioning his position in the side. This would make or break his career as an international cricketer. Dave took it in his stride and, with some support from Haddin initially and his brother Mike compiled the perfect innings for the situation. He became bogged down just before reaching his half century but once this mark was achieved, he blasted out before missing a straight delivery from O'Brian. At this point, the result was really beyond reasonable doubt, with Ferguson joining Mike Hussey to finish off the chase.

Special Mention:
To the person in the crowd who brough in a blow up doll and hit it around the crowd like a beach ball.
To the person in the crowd who pretended to "have relations with" the blow up doll.
To the legend in the crowd who climbed up onto the bar underneath the Adelaide Oval scoreboard to retrieve a blow up animal and stayed up there for a good 10 minutes, infuriating police and being cheered by the crowd.
Not that I condone such behaviour, not at all .-)

Hopefully this is close to the first match report you can read on the net about this game!