There’s much talk about poor Victoria who will be forced to field an under strength team in tomorrow’s Twenty20 final. They’ve even tried to recruit Adam Gilchrist, which would have been awesome for the spectacle, but they obviously didn’t front up with enough cash.

Here’s who they’ll be missing tomorrow night

• Brad Hodge – avg 42, sr 136. Top Twenty20 run-scorer in Australia. Top Twenty20 run-scorer in the world. Injured in Elimination Final.
• David Hussey – avg 32, sr 140. Second top Twenty20 run scorer in Australia. Restrictive bowler. Playing for Oz.
• Cameron White – avg 35, sr 154. Destructive batsman and part time bowler.

Boo fúcking hoo. I realise it’s a new experience for Victoria to lose players to the national setup, but this is something that happens to us all the time. Here’s the first choice players on our books that we’ll be missing tomorrow night:

Nathan Bracken – avg 19, eco 7. Worlds top ranked ODI and T20 bowler. Man-hair model. Playing for Australia

David Warner – avg 29.5, sr 150. Destructive opening batsman, playing for Oz.

Michael Clarke – avg 23, sr 130. Quality middle order batsman, economical bowler. Injured playing for Australia

Brad Haddin – avg 20, sr 110. Quality keeper and agressive batsman in superb form.

Stuart Clark – avg 18, eco 6.6. Econimical and threatining bowler. Injured playing for Oz

Nathan Hauritz – avg 15, eco 6.3. Restrictive bowler. Playing for Oz.

I can’t work out why these articles only mention the absent Victorians. On the balance I’d say NSW are in fact more weakened through injury/abscence than Victoria, but obviously both teams are missing a lot of quality. Regardless, it’s hard to agree with the sob story coming from south of the border.