Australia

Our bowling lineup looks at it’s strongest so far in the series with Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson playing together at last. Mitchell’s troubled the Saffas more than any other bowler on this tour so having him back after a rest will be a big bonus.

Hilfenhaus has shown some of the potential that I keep talking up this series, and bowled a heap of garbage too. He and Ryan Harris have been dropped for tomorrow’s game to make room for Tait and Johnson. I’d really like to see ‘Dirty’ Dirk Nannes given a shot, preferably in a way that forces him to miss tomorrow night’s Twenty20 final at the SCG

Shaun Marsh has blasted off the cobwebs of his sub-par domestic season with 78 and 79, here’s to a century from the Son of Swampy. The only question remaining in our lineup is which Queenslander to not play at number 8. Here’s hoping my boy Dave Warner starts middling them again tonight, if not can we have him back for tomorrow?

South Africa

Johan Botha throws like a girl, and his action is dodgy as hell but at least the teams over rate is improving. AB ‘c’ DeVilliers should be be getting back on the horse that threw him, look for Ricky to bring Tait on as soon as he’s in. The overly hyped Vaughn van Jaarsveld has been dropped, much like the multiple chances that have fallen through his hands and snuck past his bat.

We’re still looking for a way to negate JP Duminy, hopefully Tait can maim him as I just can’t see us getting him out the old fashioned way.

Free Stuff

If you’re going to the match tonight, hold on to your ticket as it’ll work at Homebush for the Twenty20 final tomorrow as well. We’re hoping to take the record for highest attendance at a domestic Twenty20 game from the Vics in addition to the Big Bash Trophy, so giving tickets away seemed like a good plan. To be honest I reckon they should give all tickets away and make cash off food/drink/merchandise, or charge a token amount to get the bums on seats. Still, $20 aint too bad..

The Teams

Australia 1 Shaun Marsh, 2 David Warner, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Michael Hussey, 5 David Hussey, 6 Cameron White, 7 Brad Haddin (wk), 8 James Hopes/Nathan Hauritz, 9 Mitchell Johnson, 10 Nathan Bracken, 11 Shaun Tait.

South Africa (possible) 1 Herschelle Gibbs, 2 Hashim Amla, 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 AB de Villiers, 5 JP Duminy, 6 Neil McKenzie, 7 Mark Boucher (wk), 8 Albie Morkel, 9 Johan Botha (capt), 10 Dale Steyn/Morne Morkel, 11 Makhaya Ntini.

[Tait's] third ball thwacked into AB de Villier’s midriff. Doubled over in pain, de Villiers’ bat crashed into the stumps. As he crumpled to the ground in agony, the Australians clustered next to his quivering body, high fiving and celebrating. I think I may have seen Cameron White kick de Villiers in the ribs a few times while noone was looking. It was a moment that would’ve brought a tear to Jeff Thomson’s eye.

For me the highlight was the Victorian keeper Adam Croswaithe running up to the stumps for the sole purpose of clapping the bowler right in front of the batsmen. The bowler returns to his runup without so much as checking the fallen batsmen for a pulse. Actually, the slo-mo Chewbacca sounds are pretty cool too.

At least Hartley had the forethought to keel over away from his stumps. Good boy.

I’m getting very excited by the prospect of seeing David Warner take on Steyn and Morkel come Sunday night, hopefully this bástardised version of cricket lives up to excitement from the Test Series.

Oh, and reformed chucker Johan Botha’s been named captain of the Saffas. One must wonder wtf Boucher did to piss off the hierachy…

NoteClick on the thumbnails to see the full pictures of these WAGs

Here’s the winners and the % of votes cast in their pool from round one, not surprisingly all the top seeded WAGS made it through their heats with flying colours, however Rianna Ponting polling 18% of the vote would have been at long odds.

The most dominating performance in round 1 was Roy’s missus Katie Johnson, though in fairness to the other WAGS she was up against a pregnant Meg Hodge and an out of focus Karina Castle.

Pool A: Annika McNamara [63%]
Pool B: Georgie Willis [73%]
Pool C: Haley Bracken [66%]
Pool D: Jessica Bratich [79%]
Pool E: Lara Bingle [79%]
Pool F: Lee Furlong [77%]
Pool G: Katie Johnson [82%]
Pool H: Amber van Schiajik [52%]

Here’s how the round robin table stands

WAGS Deathmatch

I’ll be working on round 2 this week..

All up there’s 8 votes this round, and the images are in the same order as the poll choices. You can hover your mouse over the pictures to see the names, and can also click the thumbnails for the full size and un-cropped picture to open in a new window.

Outright Bástard

The future Australian XI did well to restrict the star studded Redbacks outfit to 313 after they won the toss and elected to swing the willow.

A pumped up Bluetongues blew off the demons of losing their 50 Over match off a last ball misfield by scoring 576 runs in reply to the SA total, a superb effort from the pre-pubescent future Baggy Greens against the recently pronounced sane reverse swinging demi-god and “India-Ready” Shaun Tait.. who spectacularly failed to take any wickets at all with the first ball, then managed a massive 1 batsman and 2 bowlers with the second.

So, Day 4 and we were looking at bowling the Redbacks out to add outright victory to our firsts innings points, however Younis Khan has finally shed the jetlag and has been batting most of the day. What’s more he’s now taken the SA total past ours meaning we’ll have to bat again, Bastárd.

Man Hair

Now I’m not going to make excuses for the loss, by all accounts Tait was devastating with the ball, and it’s not like losing our top 27 players to an India tour and another to a debilitating man-hair injury has adversely effected us.

As long as NSW continue to breed the big names we should pull through this season, and if we can find a way to make the finals then get our big guns back we’ll probably win the Shield, again.