We may not have won anything in the longer form over in the sub contintent but back at home there was some entertaining cricket occuring around Australia.
Queensland v Tasmania
Firstly there was Queensland v Tasmania up at the GABBA. There was some word within the twitter world and Queenslanders that if you ever want some rain, just schedule a game to be played at the GABBA. This theory held out for the shield game, with no extended play taking part and Tasmania batting 31 overs scoring 2/52. Both teams start with a draw.
Victoria v Western Australia
Rain again reared it's ugly head over at the WACA but thankfully it wasn't for sustained periods and we got some play. Victoria piled on a mammoth 529 in the first innings, with all of the top six contributing and three scores over 50 runs. Andrew McDonald the standout scoring 163, plundering the listless Western Australia attack all over the ground.
Western Australia on the other hand couldn't get started, they got off to a handy start getting to 72 with the fall of one wicket but it was all downhill from there. Darren Pattinson ripping through the WA lineup taking 8 wickets for 35 runs putting pressure to gain another call up for England. WA crawled to 190 and had to follow on to try and avoid an innings defeat.
Former South African coach Mickey Arthur must of given a good speech because after the early loss of Liam Davis WA, steadied and Michael Swart scored his first century in shield competition plus getting help from Luke Pomersbach with a useful 89 to post a good total of 400. The first innings collapse would come back to haunt them as it only let Victoria 64 to chase.
Despite losing two wickets in the chase, Victoria cruised to victory and took mortgage of top position of the ladder much like last year, picking up first innings and match points.
South Australia v New South Wales
This was the game that took most of my attention this week, New South Wales fresh off losing their first Ryobi Cup looked to restore some pride in the Sheffield Shield encounter. They did just that, with debutant Nic Maddinson and Usman Khawaja putting NSW in a commanding position with a 150 run partnership, dominated by Maddinson who was cautious for his first 50 and exploded scoring his last 50 in the same amount of time. After Maddinson fell, Khawaja took over scoring 214 to just further push his claim for test selection. Brad Haddin had a nice hit-out scoring an almost run a ball 54 with NSW declaring on 6/529.
South Australia weren't as convincing with their first innings losing a constant stream of wickets thanks to "golden arm" Moises Henriques having figures of 3/4 at once stage. South Aust to their credit put on a nice stand, with new recruit Aiden Blizzard scoring 96 falling agonisingly short of a century. The lower order would fight but Steven O'Keefe put pressure on Nathan Hauritz picking up 3/25 to restrict SA to 255 and being forced to follow on.
An opening stand of 82 would get the Redbacks off to a good start and ate into some of New South Wale's lead but Steven O'Keefe again ripped through the South Australian batsmen including the scalp of Blizzard for zero. Chris Duval and Aaron O'Brien would be a thorn in New South Wale's side helping them past the NSW score and six in front.
New South Wales easily disposed of the target within their first over and took all the available points for their first game, a nice improvement on last year where they were close to the bottom.
Shield performance of the week
It's tough this week, there was Pattinson's 8 fer against Western Australia, Nic Maddinson's hundred on debut with some great strokeplay and Usman's Khawaja's 214 to set NSW up in the first innings. After mulling over the choices, I'm going to seem biased here but I can't go past Nic Maddinson's hundred on debut he was only the 15th person to do this for NSW and the youngest to pass the milestone.
As always if you want to give me crap for my selection, debate the three matches or contemplate what the Ashes XI may be for Brisbane, my twitter handle is @Dragonpunk12.
2 comments:
A tough week to pick a favorite, but yeah, debut at State level and getting a century. That's impressive. NSW keep churning them out. Expectedly The Redbacks played poorly but we're rather bland in Sheffield.
Usman Khawaja has done all he can to get a chance for the Ashes. I was hesitant at first, but he's showing some class out there. I see no reason for him to be blooded, and maybe Fergal as well. Thing with Khawaja is he has already shadowed Australia in a tour so he will know the preps & expectations.
I'm all for some new faces come the Ashes, and that isn't through panic, if anything I think it will be courageous and inject confidence into the masses as Australia moves forward.
O'Keefe doing himself no harm putting in these performances.
Personally I'm quite happy for the team to go in with 4 seamers & a bloke like Smith as an option (with Pup too, maybe Katto, don't forget Watto) for bowling duties.
Let's see. We'll get our articles up soon on that.
Nice sum up J.
Copeland takes another 5 in the NSW v SA match to start his 2010/11season after bowling a massive 54 overs out of about 160!
Will be interesting to watch throughout the season...but the Blues could be a good tip for the SS final this time round.
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