Posts under topic: ‘Twenty20’

South Africa scored a mammoth 240 in the 2nd Twenty20 International, yet England’s batsmen are being asked to answer for the failure of the bowlers

There is a certain class of English cricket enthusiast who will have barely registered that the Champions League was even taking place this past two weeks. If you are a member of this class, you would probably snort in derision at the idea that it is set to become one of the most important competitions in cricket.

Twenty20 is still percieved, in England at least, as “hit and giggle”, a bit of fun that shouldn’t be taken seriously. It’s referred to as a lottery, the ridiculous idea that a team’s level of skill has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it is successful.

It is time to drop the snobbery.

Some might say that a cricket contest took place today. Others, including all of New South Wales, would disagree with a certain amount of muscular vitality. But far more importantly, we can reveal for the first time a hidden secret about the much scrutinised technique of Philip Hughes.

Somerset hoped to take advantage of Kieron Pollard-inflicted shell-shock when they played NSW Blues. They didn’t want a backlash, and in the end got neither. Instead they gave it away with careless batting early on, and got creamed as a result.

When England first came across Kieron Pollard last winter, he seemed an ok sort of cricketer of the bits and pieces variety. Today he played an innings for Trinidad & Tobago that can only be described as abuse. The kind of innings that will make an Australian sports psychologist somewhere an awful lot of money.

There was nothing very remarkable about Somerset’s loss to Diamond Eagles today, except perhaps the bowling of CJ de Villiers again. Trescothick had returned home, but his replacement Wes Durston top scored with 57 from 32 balls, the highest innings by an Englishman in the tournament so far. That was about it as far as the Sabres were concerned, as they subsided pretty comprehensively.

Poor Tres. He had been muched praised for his efforts in even reaching India to take part in the Champions League Twenty20 for Somerset. Now he has been forced to return home after a recurrence of his stress related illness.

Deccan Chargers were the champions of the 2nd IPL season. But they have never won a game at their home stadium. Now they have been defeated by the West Indian T20 champions, Trinidad & Tobago as well as the English runners up Somerset.

Diamond Eagles made hard work of it, but Cornelius de Villiers did for Sussex in the Super Over, taking both Sussex wickets in the first two balls of their over.
Earlier, Sussex had fought back well to keep the match to a tie, but then did a passable Saffer choke and threw it away needing just [...]

Unless you’re Ross Taylor, attempting to hit every ball to the boundary is guaranteed to end in tears. In T20, you still have to build an innings, you just have to do it more quickly, and in the last few overs you start to think about clearing the ropes every ball.