Australia cricket news

Brad Haddin shows it won’t be that big a deal when Adam Gilchrist retires, when it really should be

On Saturday, Brad Haddin played his first international match since February after Australia’s batsmen suddenly decided they didn’t want to bat in India and feigned any number of injuries. Haddin hit 69 then, although India’s innings was washed-out.

Today, Haddin hit 87 not out off 69 balls and Australia won by 84 runs. This innings was of more interest for the future though. Brad Haddin averages 40 in first-class cricket and now he’s showing some ability at international level.

Australian cricketers may appear to have the life-giving properties of the Holy Grail at their disposal, but Warne and McGrath’s retirements last year disprove this. They are mortal. Those wizened faces are attached to ageing bodies, even if they don’t seem as creaky as they should be. With that in mind, Adam Gilchrist WILL retire.

No, really. We know that you don’t believe us, but he will. He’ll be 36 in a month or so and while Alec Stewart saw off ‘time to call it a day, granddad’ jibes for four years longer than that, Gilchrist doesn’t have the luxury of crap back-up warding off the gold watch.

So, young, soon-to-be-30, Brad Haddin will be the man taking over and whereas there was no new Shane Warne, the wicketkeeping position is more likely to follow the temporarily overlapping template used for the Glenn McGrath to Stuart Clark handover.

As a leg-spinner, would Warne’s handover have been a legover if there’d been a suitable understudy?

Yuvraj Singh: How much better could he be?

The answer, of course, is none. None better.

India were doing precisely nothing when he came to the crease in the Twenty20 World Cup semi-final against Australia. They were 41-2 after eight overs. ‘It’s too hard’ they seemed to be saying. ‘We can’t lay bat on ball’.

‘What?’ said Yuvraj Singh, utterly perplexed by his team mates’ inability to time the ball with absolute perfection. ‘Just do this,’ he instructed and promptly hit 70 runs off 30 balls, scything five fours and as many sixes.

If we were Yuvraj Singh, we’d feel perfectly happy about pointing at ourself in the mirror and saying ‘you the man’ because we’d be well aware that we were the man and wouldn’t be at all shy about letting ourself know this fact.

South Africa choke in 1999 World Cup semi final against Australia

South Africa needed nine off the final over and Lance Klusener – by some way the best batsman in that tournament – belted the first two deliveries for four.

South Africa now needed one to win. The third ball went straight to a fielder, but Allan Donald was already half way down the pitch and would have been run out if Darren Lehmann had hit the stumps.

The fourth wasn’t much of a shot either, but Klusener said ‘yes’. Donald disagreed and didn’t move. As Klusener passed him, Donald realised he had to go, but it was too late. Donald was run out, South Africa were all out, the scores were tied and Australia progressed to the final thanks to an earlier win over South Africa.

If you’re not of a nervous disposition, you could watch the video. We’re neither Australian nor South African and it’s eight years later, but it’s still a little too much for us.

We’d have choked long before the final over.

Misbah-ul-Haq: a Twenty20 specialist

There’s a difference between being a Twenty20 specialist from county cricket and being an international-standard Twenty20 specialist. If you’re the former, you don’t really qualify for consideration in the latter category. There’s a kind of minimum skill level that’s essential. Ask England.

We mention Misbah-ul-Haq and his handiness for the first time and within a few hours he’s seeing Pakistan home against Australia with a stunning knock of 66 off 42 balls.

Pakistan had fallen to 46-4 after 6.4 overs chasing 165 when Misbah-ul-Haq came to the crease. For some reason Pakistan’s middle order, whoever it may contain, is ever-so-slightly more adept than their top order is incompetent.

In addition to yesterday’s recovery, they’ve come back from 33-3 after 5.5 overs to post 189 against Sri Lanka and 47-4 after 8.5 overs to tie with India on 141.

Wickets are less of an issue in Twenty20 in the sense that it’s fairly unlikely that a side will get bowled out. However, it takes quite an eye to start scoring quickly as soon as you arrive at the crease. It also takes a little of something else to not get flustered as the run-rate rises when your side’s in such a perilous position. Seems like Misbah-ul-Haq’s got the eye as well as the something.

It’s hard to know which statistic is the most useful for Twenty20 batting, but fortunately Misbah-ul-Haq’s top for pretty much all of them. The only batsman with a higher average than his 79 in this tournament is Brendan Taylor (107), but he’s scored fewer runs and at a slower rate.

No-one’s scored more than Misbah-ul-Haq’s tournament total of 158. Mahela Jayawardene has also hit 158 runs, but he’s scored them at a rate of 154.9 runs per hundred balls faced. Misbah-ul-Haq can boast a rate of 159.59 runs per hundred balls and that average of 79 is way above Jayawardene’s 52.66.

England v Australia

We heard that England were playing Australia yesterday, but we didn’t pay any attention.

We’re not going to bother checking, but it’s pretty safe to assume that England won handsomely. Comments to the contrary will be vigorously deleted.

Yes, you can delete something ‘vigorously’ – but only when that something is a gargantuan untruth.

To finish with here’s a photograph:

Again we’re not going to check, but we’re reasonably confident that this is Matthew Hayden driving his first ball straight into the hands of the cover fielder to register his second golden duck of the tournament.

Matthew Hayden updates from our old site

Australia lose to Zimbabwe

What’s this in our underwear? It’s urine. It’s gallons and gallons of urine produced during uncontrollable laughter at how Australia lost to Zimbabwe in the Twenty20 World Cup.

It’s been a long time since anyone’s really been able to remark upon an Australian defeat. There was England’s win in the Commonwealth Bank Series, but you always got the feeling it was going to be sandwiched between Australian victories in the Ashes and the World Cup and sure enough it was.

This is like a freebie though. No-one should lose to Zimbabwe. If you played Zimbabwe along with three mates on the local school field, Zimbabwe would run themselves out, then bowl wides and your three mates would hate you for making them waste a perfectly good afternoon.

Hopefully they won’t beat England now or that paragraph’s going to come back to haunt us.

Anyway. Live in the moment. To Australia’s rampant six-hitters! [Raises empty mug in solitary toast, thus realising that there is kettle work to be done.]

Stuart MacGill with some bird on his arm

Ho ho ho. It’s an actual… Ah, you get the drift.

Let’s discuss whose bird’s the nicer: Kevin’s or Stuart’s.

Wicketkeepers open the batting in one-day internationals – apparently

England are always on the lookout for a wicketkeeper who can bat and particularly one who can open the batting in one-day internationals. This is because Adam Gilchrist opens the batting for Australia in one-day internationals and Australia are better than England and therefore must be copied in EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY.

No matter that Australia wanted an aggressive opener and their best wicketkeeper batsman just happened to be one. That’s not important. The important thing is that you win one-day internationals by having a wicketkeeper at the top of the order. That’s just the way it is. Knowing England’s luck, they’ll find a decent wicketkeeper-opener and Australia will change to a first-change bowler/opening batsman. Always behind the times, England.

What a player does while his side are fielding is of CRUCIAL importance when selecting your opening batsmen.

England are currently flirting with Philip Mustard.