I’ve been busy over at State Cricket, turns out the NSWales blues still have a mathematical chance of making the Sheffield Shield final against the choking Mexicans, and Dave Warner will not get his 1st class debut on Thursday.
Posts Tagged ‘Sheffield Shield’
New posts over at StateCricket.com
February 24th, 2009
Warner “dropped” before being “selected”
February 24th, 2009Dave Warner has been left out of the NSWales squad to challenge Queensland in Thursday’s 4 day match. I can’t find the actual squad posted anywhere, but I heard it on the radio so it must be true.
I can understand this decision, as a must outright win game for the Blues it’s hardly the time to be blooding new openers… but if the story is true then they could have at least picked him in their second XI squad!
At least Warner’s useful in the field and will make a top notch 12th man, he’s got International experience after all.
Best of all, the papers can re-run their stories about his not even having a 1st class cap. Can’t wait.
NSW to rally towards 46th Sheffield Shield
February 2nd, 2009It’s not too late for the mighty NSW Blues to defend their Sheffield Shield, and considering we’ve won 1, lost 3 and drawn 2 matches it’ll have to be one hell of a late rally for us to contest the finals.
We’re currently sitting in 5th place out of the 6 teams. At this stage, I’d book the MCG out as Victoria are a certainty to top the table. They’re sitting pretty on 30 points and have a big gap to the next placed Queensland with 3 matches to go. To improve our chances I’ll be hoping for as many Victorian wins to keep them ahead of the field.
There’s 4 matches remaining:
- Fri 30 – Mon 2 Feb vs Tasmania in Newcastle
- Sun 15 – Wed 18 Feb vs Victoria in Melbourne
- Thu 26 – Sun 1 Mar vs Queensland in Brisbane
- Thu 5 – Sun 8 Mar vs WA in Sydney
and of the matches on this weekend, QLD lost to Western Australia but picked up first innings points, Victoria should beat South Australia, and NSW should beat TAS outright for 6 points, which will leave the table 7/10ths of the way through the comp looking like:
- Victoria 36
- Queensland 22
- New South Wales 18
- Western Australia 18
- Tasmania 18
- South Australia 8
The real challenge for NSW, as always, will be when our Test stars depart for the South Africa tour. There is a 3 day game against South Africa A on February 20th, and I’m guessing that safety first Cricket Australia wont let those selected play the shield match against Victoria that finishes on the 18th.
Phillip Hughes is now looking a certainty for his Baggy Green, along with Simon Katich, Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin. Hopefully we can hold onto Phil Jaques, Dave Warner (to get his First Class debut), Nathan Hauritz and Nathan Bracken at least until the One Day squad is sent over for the 27th March. We’ll also be carefully monitoring Stuart Clark’s elbow and Brett Lee’s ankle – their return could well be the deciding factor in this years shield.
Our young blokes will have to step up against the nearer full strength Victorian, Queensland and Western Australian outfits, and if they do we’ll be looking good for another finals appearance. And then, just maybe we can lift the trophy for the 46th time of the 106 times it’s being contested.
Genghis screwing Bluetongue
October 27th, 2008
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.
Ford Ranger Cup Coverage Delayed
October 24th, 2008
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.
