Australian performances at the 2012 IPL

 The Indian Premier League has been concluded.

Admittedly I am rather annoyed that the Chennai Super Kings lost the final but well done the Kolkata Knight Riders for chasing down a mammoth total. Certainly made for an entertaining final which was vital given a few controversies that were sparked during the event.

I still maintain that as a domestic league with a few International stars, the tournament is WAY too long.

Most importantly for our sake, here's a look at how the top Australian players went:

Batting:

Cameron White: 13 innings, 479 runs, HS 78, Average 43.54, x5 fifties, x20 sixes
David Hussey: 15 innings, 396 runs, HS 68*, Average 33.00, x2 fifties, x17 sixes
Steven Smith: 14 innings, 362 runs, HS 47*, Average 40.22, x14 sixes
Shaun Marsh: 13 innings, 336 runs, HS 68*, Average 30.54, x2 fifties, x7 sixes
Michael Hussey: 8 innings, 261 runs, HS 56, Average 32.62, x2 fifties, x8 sixes
David Warner: 8 innings, 256 runs, HS 109*, Average 36.57, x1 century, x1 fifty, x14 sixes
Shane Watson: 11 innings, 255 runs, HS 90*, Average 42.50, x2 fifties, x14 sixes
Brad Hodge: 12 innings, 245 runs, HS 48*, Average 30.62, x9 sixes

Bowling:

Ben Hilfenhaus: 9 games, 14 wickets at 16.64.
Brad Hogg: 9 games, 10 wickets at 25.30.
Ryan Harris: 5 games, 8 wickets at 16.25.
Doug Bollinger: 6 games, 8 wickets at 19.62.
Dan Christian: 7 games, 8 wickets at 29.12.

The performances alongside the Big Bash League certainly gives the National Selection Panel the perfect situation to decide upon the players they wish to select for the 2012 ICC World T20.

It was very good to see Shaun Marsh and Cameron White regain their confidence and it was even better to see them play their natural games, despite it being Twenty20 cricket. Their natural temperaments came to the forefront and they looked focused, in control and seemed to really enjoy themselves. Sometimes that is all it takes! Well done boys.

The Hussey brothers delivered the goods for their respective teams and our big hitters Shane Watson and David Warner were able to provide a few firework displays during the tournament. The NSP definitely have a few tough decisions to make on the batting front!

The Big Bash boasted some excellent bowling performances, especially for Brad Hogg. He is eying a comeback into the Australian side for a major ICC event. Since the Big Bash League he has played a T20i against India in Australia and his performances in the IPL - from what I saw on the tele - were good enough to suggest we should give the bloke a go out there. He still has the enthusiasm and no shortage of energy!

Ben Hilfenhaus made a wonderful impact and it's amazing to think that the Big Bash League played a relatively significant role to put him back on the Australian fanatics radar just before getting the recall to the Test side. He will be well aware that he needs to work on his death bowling but the subtle variations to his bowling have FINALLY arrived for the T20 format.

Otherwise Ryan Harris would be my pick but in Ryano's case a lot depends on his fitness. Was also good to see Douggie Bollinger getting some game time.

The bowling will be a tough one for the NSP but they have enough to bring in a good variation of players, especially taking note of the most important Twenty20 event of the season being the Big Bash League.

What's your ideal 14 man squad for the ICC World T20?

Hope you're all surviving the cricket drought!

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Cricket Champs update

This is the latest update from our mates over at Cricket Champs.

If you are interested in helping spread the word, you can find the slideshow at the following link.

Justin Sambell has invested a lot time and energy into this organisation and has even had Cricket Champs featured on Fox Sports during a Ryobi Cup match. It's certainly going places!

Michael Hussey and Tom Moody are involved in the organisation and the W.A.C.A has provided outstanding support for the cause.

Cricket champs presentation

View more PowerPoint from JustinSam

If you wish to contact Cricket Champs directly, here is their website where you can then find the Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Australian cricket news: McDermott quits and ODI Squad announced

Quite a few events have taken place over the last few days in the Australian cricket scene.

Most importantly is the upsetting news that Craig McDermott has quit as Australia's bowling coach. It's a huge loss after the terrific work he did with the bowlers. He focused on the fundamentals, redeveloped the foundation for our bowlers and then built things up by focusing on each and every bowlers core skills and how they could execute their abilities as a team. The results show.

He's been given plenty of public support from the players and I wish him all the best as he has clearly done a brilliant job. Cricket Australia has a huge void to fill!

The reason given for Craig's departure was purely due to the demands of touring and the overall work schedule which was affecting his family commitments. Family comes first in life and if you have the opportunity to walk away feeling you've done a damn good job at what your were doing and can afford the chance to have some time out, go for it.

It interesting though as I figured with his knowledge having played cricket (although in a different era) he would know the demands and that the support staff share the same demands as the players. In any case his decision has been made.

For more information regarding his departure, here's the official article at Cricket Australia: Click here.

Now, for the Squad announcements - Australian ODI Squad and Australia A Squad.

What are your opinions?

I am really pleased with the ODI squad. The fact I am a little upset some players weren't included in the side over some players, at the same time I feel it's great because it shows the depth that has been brewing in our limited overs setup for some time. The key is that these guys show some guts and play their hearts out!

I am excited that Mitchell Johnson has been recalled. A few months back I wrote a heartfelt piece that expressed my unquestionable belief that he has the goods to deliver for us in ODI cricket. My opinion differs come Test cricket, but Mitch is an extremely talented sportsman and throwing him out the system would just be plain stupid, so well done to Mr Inverarity and his cronies.

He hasn't played a lot of cricket in a while but with the right preparations and the return of passion for his cricket, I am certain Mitchy will come out to give it his absolute best for the UK Tour.

Steven Smith has shown a big step up during the IPL and did get some strong performances behind his name during the summer having been dropped from the team a while back. A part of me feels he could be held back a while longer but he'll be stepping in as the chosen all rounder to fill in for Dan Christian who did not make a recall to the side.

Patrick Cummins is back in which is great news! Can't wait to see him cruising in to pick up his Australian career again. Hope the injuries keep at bay.

Anyways, here's the Squad:
Michael Clarke (captain), Shane Watson, George Bailey, Pat Cummins, Xavier Doherty, Ben Hilfenhaus, Michael Hussey, David Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Clint McKay, James Pattinson, Steve Smith, Matthew Wade (wk), David Warner.
As for the Australia A, here's their announced squad which sees the return of Tim Paine (adding the competition in the wicket keeper zone) and is a wonderful blend of experience and youth. It's setting a great example moving forward and looking at this side on paper it really does uplift my confidence seeing Australian cricket move forward.

Australia A Squad to tour the UK:
Ed Cowan (capt), Peter Forrest (vc) , George Bailey, Jackson Bird, Joe Burns, Tom Cooper, Patrick Cummins, Ben Cutting, Liam Davis, Jon Holland, Mitchell Johnson, Michael Klinger, Nathan Lyon, Tim Paine, James Pattinson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc.


For the Australian UK limited overs tour, click here to check those fixtures.

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Ben Hilfenhaus: The journey of the working class bowler

On 5th January 2007 Ben Hilfenhaus was rewarded for his outstanding achievements at the Allan Border Medal award ceremony where he won the Bradman Young Cricket of the Year Trophy. He won it convincingly receiving 97 votes in total. His performances for Tasmania sparked a fair bit of interest from the National Selection Panel and on that night it was clear that Hilfenhaus was well on track for a future with the Australian cricket team.

The award was one suited to the young working class man who had been a bricklayer prior to becoming a full time cricketer. He is man who knows about hard work and as humble a man as Hilfenhaus is as well, he had plenty to boast about after the 2006/07 Pura Cup.

After 11 matches he sent down 509.1 overs taking 60 wickets, the most for the season at an average of 25.38. Andy Bichel took the second most for the season with 45 wickets. Even Glenn McGrath stated that he viewed Hilfenhaus to be “very impressive”.

On that evening in Melbourne Hilfenhaus declared, “it's been a fast ride”. The ride had been a fast one for the working class bowler to get his name on the radar and although it was going to be a ride that would continue, there would be many, many bumps along the way. This article takes a brief look at this journey.

Given the massive workload in that breakthrough period, stress fractures and injury niggles caused minor setbacks to his emerging career. He returned the following season with modest figures in 2007/08 claiming 28 wickets at an average of 43.82.

Having debuted for Australia in Twenty20 and ODI cricket and shown reasonable consistency in First Class cricket, he was given the nod to join the Test Squad during periods of 2008 but lucked out due to injury concerns, an unfortunate pattern that would mean he’d have to wait until 2009 to receive his Baggy Green cap. He continued to do what he could do best and that was to take as many wickets as possible for the Tasmanian Tigers when he was fit.

The missing class

Just a decade ago, many Australian fans and most importantly the selectors could name a handful of batting replacements to fill in or even take over the spots of the current batting lineup. How things have changed in the space of a decade with no player in their late 20′s knocking the door down for selection.

When talking about unlucky batsmen from the past decade in Australian cricket, names such as Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Phil Jaques, Michael Bevan, Chris Rogers, Martin Love and Michael Di Venuto were mentioned. A decade ago these were the players putting pressure on the incumbents with their First Class averages well above 45. The thing each of these guys have in common apart from missing the boat in regards to Test cricket is each of them were in their late 20s a decade ago.

Back then the selectors and fans were debating over whether to pick a young promising player such as Michael Clarke and Shane Watson or go with the guys mentioned above. Times have changed substantially since then with no such luxury for the current selectors. The batsmen in their late 20s have First Class averages between 35-40 and while there are some promising youngsters on the scene, they have not been able to established themselves at Test level yet.

If we go back to the 2005/06 season where the batsmen in their late 20s now would have been in their early 20s, Mark Cosgrove made 736 runs at 66.9, George Bailey 778 runs at 43.22, Shaun Marsh 676 runs at 37.55, Callum Ferguson 506 runs at  36.14 and Cameron White 482 runs at 30.12.

2006/07 was awful for the guys mentioned above with Cosgrove the best of the lot with 703 runs at 37. Andrew McDonald actually made a fair amount of runs this season which I did not pick up on previously with 750 runs at 57.69.

The 2007/08 season showed some promise with Luke Pomersbach putting his name on the radar with 743 runs at 61.91 and it was also Philip Hughes’ first season where he ended up with 559 runs at 62.11. Shaun Marsh and Cameron White also put in some solid numbers and interesting enough neither of them would play this amount of games again (7 and 9 respectively). McDonald backed up his previous season with a solid 545 at 49.54.

2008/09 saw the emergence of the other young leftie who is currently in the Australian setup in Usman Khawaja. Hughes had a massive second year to back up his first one while White had another solid season but like Khawaja and Hughes, he did not play enough games to push the 1000 run barrier. Pomersbach copped the second year syndrome, from which he would never recapture the heights of his 07/08 season. McDonald was not required as much this season but still produced 356 runs at 44.5. The thing to notice is his lack of 100s which was noticeable when he was picked for Australia.

The next season was our first sighting of Steven Smith who had a mammoth season with four hundreds for 772 runs at 77.2. Hughes also had a big year almost cracking the 1000 run barrier and Khawaja backed up his first season. This was also Peter Forrest’s first noticeable production.

The mark of the new decade also brought about a change in the run scorers. Gone were Martin Love and Brad Hodge and the veterans left struggled with age appearing to catch up with them. Two seasons have gone in this new decade with a lack of big runs and no batsmen has crossed the 1000 run barrier since the 2008/09 season. McDonald may well have cracked this mark if he did not get injured after he started the season with a bang with 458 runs from 8 innings including 3 hundreds at an average of 76.33.

Of the players I mentioned who are in their late 20s now, Mark Cosgrove is the only one that has a respectable First Class record. Shaun Marsh has been producing runs in the past few seasons but his lack of matches either through injury or national duty has meant he is still yet to play a full season and his First Class average is well below 40. Cameron White is in the same boat however his First Class average is acceptable at 40 but his recent demotion from the National setup coupled with a lackluster return in Shield cricket means White won’t be adding to his test tally anytime soon.

George Bailey has been consistent in producing season averages of 40 but this season is the first time he has cracked an average of 50 and this is reflected in his overall FC average which is almost dead on 40.

Callum Ferguson was one I thought could do a Michael Clarke and make up for his sub par First Class stats by stepping up at the next level. The signs were promising early with Ferguson averaging 41 in ODI cricket but the selectors never pulled the trigger in taking a punt on him in the Test arena and since then Ferguson has struggled to put any sort of numbers up. All things considered, his First Class stats are even poorer when you consider his home ground is the Adelaide Oval.

There are other names in their late 20s who have been producing recently such as Rob Quiney, Peter Forrest, Ed Cowan and Liam Davis but apart from Cowan none of them have a First Class average over 40. Andrew McDonald is another whose FC average has taken a battering due to his poor start to his career but from 06/07 onwards he has produced solid numbers in a strong Victorian batting lineup. It is a shame his 10/11 season got cut short else he might be in the frame right now.

It is clear players from the class of early 2000s have not lived up to the hype and failed to kick on like many would have hoped. George Bailey and Peter Forrest are next in line for the Australian batting lineup which shows how far the standards have dropped as apart from this season (2011/12) and 09/10 for Cowan neither has made an significant impression in the runs department during their First Class cricket span.

There is still hope that the current youngsters on the scene will bring Australia back to the glory days where batsmen like David Hussey, Martin Love and co could be left out and the side still remained strong.

In around 5 years Philip Hughes, Steven Smith, Usman Khawaja, Glenn Maxwell, Joe Burns, Chris Lynn and Tom Cooper (Netherlands/ South Australia) will be in their late 20s and one can only hope they kick on and don’t follow their predecessors.

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Video: Top Aussie moments of the 2012 Frank Worrell Trophy

Here's a video featuring a few of my favourite moments for a recap of the 2012 Frank Worrell Trophy. I have a stack of recorded footage of my own and from various sources that I aim to make into worthwhile content for you to check out.

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