Posted by Australia were whitewashed in Pakistan going into this tournament and earlier in the week lost their captain to internal testicular bleeding. Defeat to Zimbabwe could therefore plausibly still rank as being ‘on the up’.
Today’s result moves Australia’s T20 World Cup record against Zimbabwe along to ‘played two, lost two’. In the previous match, in 2007, they were bowled out for 138, so 146 all out again smacks of progress.
Throw in the fact that the team back then featured both Matthew Hayden AND Brad Haddin and it’s hard to argue that great strides aren’t being made here.
If you’re wondering how Cricket Australia’s official website reported on the result, they’ve gone with the obvious headline of “Boilover!“
The main body of the article reports that, “Zimbabwe have edged Australia in a stunning T20 World Cup boilover in Colombo.”
Australian sporting slang is a source of endless joy for us. We’ve been reading Australian sports reporting for about 20 years now and we can’t recall a previous ‘boilover’. We’ve no idea how it’s passed us by, but we feel huge confidence that we’ll now encounter it roughly once a week until the day we die.
For what it’s worth, we regularly suffer boilovers ourself as when we leave a pan simmering with the lid ajar, it always seems to jiggle its way back into position, at which point the internal heat rises and the pan boils over. As far as we can tell, there are a great many online ‘hacks’ to prevent a pan boiling over, but pretty much all of them seem to involve not using the lid in the first place.
Australia have greatly minimised the number of Zimbabwe boilovers they can suffer through the simple tactic of largely avoiding ever playing them. Perhaps we can all learn from that. Maybe we should do without a pan lid.
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‘How will Australia ever break Zimbabwe’s hold over them in T20?’ will be the talk of the cricketing world for years to come. At least of we try hard enough.
Pleasingly, Wellington Masakadza, who took a wicket in yesterday’s match, is the younger brother of Hamilton Masakadza, who took a wicket in that 2007 match. In both matches they went for exactly 9 runs an over – clearly a family tradition.
We have to say, after apparently cracking the Masakadza family’s naming system just now, we were very excited to click on “SW Masakadza” to see what they’d gone for. We were therefore rather disappointed to learn it was Shingirai, despite the fact that taken in isolation it’s an absolutely top drawer name.
It is a great name, but is only used for a school and a road in Harare. They could have gone for Maunganui… Or just Christchurch. That way he would obviously have gone on to play international cricket like his brothers.
I feel like the poster child for the “if something goes wrong, never attempt anything like it ever again” approach to life so this feels comforting.
Massively belated, but: I recognise that username!
Appreciate your work on the Grauniad county cricket dictionary. Very useful.
Did I do any of that?!
Nevertheless, I’m happy to grab some reflected glory from the outstanding work of others there!
“Zimbabwe have edged Australia…”
Obvious crude jokes aside, AFF’s piece in Cricinfo tells us that Zimbabwe “were so clearly, and so unquestionably, the better team. They won all three phases, bossing two.”
“Edged”, is it? Mm.
In other news, England v Scotland is a more entertaining watch than I expected it to be. The commentators keep talking up Scotland’s chances, while I keep sensing that England would need to lose yet another couple of wickets at each stage in order to be under real pressure.
Rotund cricketer watch – Mark Watt of Scotland – eh Watt? (I know you don’t do requests, KC.).
England managed to avoid an expensive killer Watt hour – the aim for everyone during the colder months
Ha-ha. Mark Watt certainly has an amp-le girth.
Tom Banton found it elementary when Watt’s on.
The most interesting factoid I can find about Mark Watt is that he recently represented the Karnali Yaks in the Nepal Premier League. Intriguing, because “Yaks” is not really the sort of word I would associate with team names…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal_Premier_League
…fascinating also because word hadn’t preciously reached me that there was such a thing as the Nepal Premier League. Looking at the team names for that league, they are all, with the exception of “The Yaks”, rather predictable suffix names – grandiose and/or heroic – “Gorkhas” being the only other quintessentially Himalayan one.
I’d love to think that Yakety Sax is the team’s theme tune. But in any case:
Come on you Yaks! Go Yaks, Go!
Is this to be this morning’s “through the match” chat thread for the clash between meek England and mighty Italy…
…or are King Cricket readers pasta caring by this stage?
We haven’t had enough coffee to respond with anything appropriately punsome, but yes, it is.
I see. So you are anti-pasti before breakfast.
Totalmente comprensibile.
England are in danger of making a zuppa di forte of this innings, if things continue to go from bad to offal.
If you wanted to be generous you could say England are showing that T20 is really a team game. No time for individuals to make much of a score, but if you have enough people who can swing from ball one and hit a quick 30 then wickets don’t really matter – just a dot ball, then in comes the next batter.
Also struck by the underwhelming ‘magic of Statsguru’ on cricinfo. Sample bit of statistical magic: “Partnership of 9 for the 3rd wicket is ITA highest 3rd wicket partnership in T20 World Cups”…
make that partnership of 21… and over now. How long will that mighty record stand I wonder?
and maybe at some point wickets do matter. (I mean, I guess they matter when you’ve lost10 of them.)
That record is unlikely to last as long as the 92 run record for the fourth wicket stand, that’s for sure.
fair enough. Ben Manenti has played a captain’s innings and kept the game in the balance, to say the least.
An ITA 5th wicket stand record too! Records are tumbling left right & centre.
…and a record stand for the sixth wicket too. Mind you, only one run was needed to achieve that. Stats, eh?
…and now, ITA fail to achieve the two runs required to break the seventh wicket stand record. Has the worm finally turned?
Magnifico. Meraviglioso. The Italians put up a great fight.
But ultimately, for England fans, life is a minestrone. I don’t like cricket, I love it!
They gave a good fight, and deserved the win if they got there. England don’t look to be going far in this competition, although maybe a tad longer than Australia, who got wiped out by a certain Mr Nissanka and friends today. That was good to see.
Hopefully, Zimbabwe can keep there 100% record tomorrow (no disrespect to Ireland of course).
The way this tournament is set up, England start the second round with a clean sheet, needing to win through the group which will probably contain Sri Lanka, Pakistan & New Zealand. The other group will be, in my opinion, the “group of death”, with India, South Africa and West Indies all looking like the best performing sides so far.
England’s squad is heavily weighted towards the spin options which might well work better in Lanka than they did in Kolkata & Mumbai.
Good points Ged.
…and shame on me for my very basic typographical/grammatical error in my last post.
…and just as I typed my last message, Australia have been dumped out of the competition upon the abandonment of the Zimbabwe/Ireland game.
Well done Zimbabwe.
Congratulations to Zimbabwe and to Sri Lanka’s elite rain. Commiserations to Ireland, who surely are due some favours from the rain.