The Test Series After Party (Or Main Event if Your Indian) Part 1

With Test Matches done for the summer, England's attention turns to white ball cricket. India's attention has probably been there since they produced a performance worthy of the occupants of the 'other' Old Trafford back in Manchester. There was a same old, same old feel to the squad announced for the one-dayers. A squad without Ravi Bopara. Thats the all-rounder Ravi Bopara who can hurry through ten overs of economical medium pace bowling and then clear the boundary with consummate ease.

Hales in action for Notts

The inclusion of Alex Hales in the squad is at least a positive move, but then he was in the squad for the Sri Lanka ODI's but didn't even play when Cook missed out through injury. Alex Hales has proven in County Cricket this summer that there is more to his game than just t20. In fact its become hard to not think he can open in all three formats for England in a way David Warner does for Australia.

England have scheduled plenty of ODI's over the coming months to prepare for the World Cup. Being in Australia where par is, more times than not, 300 "power hitters" should be in the minds of the selectors. Preserving wickets for an assault in the last 10 overs may well work fine in England but in Australia 60-3 after ten overs is better than 31-0. If England really are serious about preparing for this World Cup, the pitches in this India series should mimic those that will be encountered in Australia. I'd like to see the likes of Vince, Roy and Willey seriously considered to the extent where at least 2 of them will be on the plane to Australia.

Blast Off!

The changes to the domestic t20 game for 2014 were initially greeted with a mixed reception. Personally I wasn’t too fussed by the name (Natwest t20 Blast) and I especially like the “Friday night is t20 night” vibe coming from the ECB. However whether or not the new two groups of nine proves more successful than three groups of six remains to be seen.

I got my first taste of the new look t20 competition at Lord’s where Middlesex took on Essex and then Sussex in a double header. The two games were unbelievably contrasting. Firstly Essex, led by Mark Pettini’s 95*, superbly chased down 180. The pitch took a dramatic turn between games and Sussex ended up defending a modest 128.

As is the way with t20 these days, the Cricket is accompanied by other novelties. The music, part of t20 since the early days, has been kept up to date with present hits (a.k.a songs I don’t know!) with the old classics (Chelsea Dagger for example) still getting a spin. Flamethrowers shoot into the air with every boundary and wicket, while drummers provide piece of the pre-game entertainment. During the match “Blast breaks” now take place. In essence, volunteers throw t-shirts into the crowd between certain overs.

So far then, the Natwest t20 Blast has left a good first impression on me. Next stop: Northampton on Friday.

Team of the Week

There were some impressive performances over the first weekend of action. Here is my FIFA Ultimate Team style team of the week...
Dawid Malan (Middlesex) 86* vs Essex

Mark Pettini (Essex) 95* vs Middlesex

Calum MacLeod (Durham) 80 vs Worcestershire

Scott Styris (Leicestershire) 63 vs Derbyshire

Paul Collingwood (Durham) 62 & 3-29 vs Worcestershire

Samit Patel (Notts) 56 & 2-25 vs Lancashire

Ben Duckett (Northants) 39* vs Yorkshire (wk)

Ian Butler (Northants) 4-25 vs Yorkshire

Will Owen (Glamorgan) 3-32 vs Hampshire

Steffan Piolet  (Sussex) 4-0-15-2 vs Middlesex

Dirk Nannes (Somerset) 4-21 vs Gloucestershire

The argument against franchises

It’s good to see the ECB haven’t bowed down to franchises for the domestic t20 competition. Here are two arguments against franchises;
1) The current format allows people to get to a t20 game straight after work and be home in good time. If you had, for example, 8 franchises each based at 8 major grounds (Lord’s, Oval, Edgbaston, Old Trafford, Headingley, Trent Bridge, Ageas Bowl and the SWALEC Stadium) you’d lose that convenience factor. If the ECB went to 8 major franchises, how could Joe Soap  who works 20 odd miles away from Taunton get down to a t20 game after work if his nearest teams were based in Wales and Southampton!?

2) The IPL may be full of superstar players, but none of the teams in it can call themselves underdogs. Let’s not forget, humble Northants are the defending t20 in England and their victory last year was a true underdog story.

Final Over

For t20 Cricket, an IPL game seems to take forever to get through. A seemingly unnecessary amount of time is taken between consecutive deliveries being bowled. I don’t understand why there has to be two Strategic Timeouts in an innings. They seem to slow the game down. Why the IPL doesn’t have a 1 hour 20 minute timeframe for an innings is beyond me. Then again, it is a competition derived by the BCCI!