Katto pushes to cover

Not hitting a single run from three overs while Philip Hughes knocks around 17(26) at the other end, this is the sort of knock that I want to see more of from Katich. This is the form that bags him triple centuries in domestic competition, and god wont save the Poms or our Queen if he continues this sort of form in Cardiff.

We can but hope that Katto has removed that foul swipe outside off from his arsenal and from this scorecard I have determined that his mind is 100% focussed on redeeming the failures of 2005… although Aleem Dar must also take his share of the blame for the cleansing to be complete.

Let us pray that he’s been able to utilise his full arsenal of non-scoring shots in this dig, the ambitious and exaggerated leave wide outside off, the late bat swerve and shimmy round the ball which just misses the off stump, the forward defensive, the back foot punch, the push to cover, the duck, the swerve and the mis-timed pull to mid-on, all are integral parts of the Katich defensive suite.

This knock is honestly what I like to see from Katto. In that tough period approaching stumps with 5 overs to negotiate I applaud a non-scoring not-out.

He took a wicket too, in the 8 overs that Ponting gave him. If Punter stays true to form he wont bowl again this series.

Travis Birt, Unlucky

Birt, TR 86(66), 94(80), 67(56), 25(15)
Smith, DLR 29*(13), 28*(26)
Manou, GA 48* (39)
Warner 31(20), 97(54), 165*(112)
MG Dighton 59(58), 87(76)
Klinger 133*(128)
Ferguson, C 52(35), 32(26), 101(83)
Hopes J 76(61), 42(40)
Bailey, GJ 32(28)
Divin, MA 38(31)
Ronchi, L 80(64)
AK, Heal 43(34)
Quiney 42(40), 16(15), 92(85), 73(63)
Crosthwaite, AJ 52(49), 29(17)
Thornely, DJ 108(90)
Doropoulos, TP 92(75)
Henriques, MC 41(37)
Borgas, CJ 39(35)

I’ve quite possibly missed some, if anyone can point me towards a tool that pulls out domestic data rather than having to manually read the scorecards, that would be most appreciated.

Looking purely at the numbers, the standout domestic performers are:

Travis Birt from Tasmania

Travis is the form pinch hitter in the domestic T50 competition with his 7 innings yielding 363 runs at 60.5 and at a strike rate of 122! His returns this year are:

• 1/11/08 56*(37) vs SA
• 12/11/08 25(15) vs Vic
• 29/11/08 34(38) vs NSW (the game where Warner scored 165*(112)
• 07/12/08 67(56) vs NSW
• 10/12/08 94(80) vs SA
• 14/12/08 1(5) vs QLD
• 07/02/08 86(66) vs VIC (this low scoring game Tas made 197 and VIC made 189)

David Warner from NSW

Dave has already been given a shot in the national setup with promising signs but too many failures. From his 8 starts there have been 3 good innings, yielding 89(43) on debut, 69(60) in his 4th match, and 22(29) in his 6th match when he was very unlucky to be run-out.

Combine these scores with Dave’s domestic highlights of 31(20), 97(54), 165*(112) and it’s easy to agree he has the destructive power hitting would really dominate the batting powerplay without the additional pressure of opening. I’d like to see Dave given a go down the order, where he’ll have a chance to perform without the added pressure of opening.

Callum Ferguson from South Australia

His stand out performances include 52(35), 32(26) and 101(83). It’s good to see him given a shot in the Aussie side, though I would have picked Birt first purely on the numbers. Callum played well last night before a Bucknor howler cut short his opportunity. Who did the BCCI ask to wipe him from their fixtures, and can we please be added to this list?

James Hopes from Queensland

In the two games that Hopes played for Queensland he’s opened in both, scoring 76(61) and 42(40). I’d like to see him given an extended run at the top of our order, his tight straight bowling will keep him in the squad regardless. Ideally we’d have a run of 2 or maybe even 3 ODI’s without changing our openers, wouldn’t that be nice.

Adam Voges from Western Australia

Conversely, Adam Voges has made the squad without topping a run a ball all year. Now he’s the one our selectors have picked to apply ‘pressure’ to Hussey and White, yet even if he were to continue his domestic results at the higher lever I don’t believe this would be enough. His 295 runs at 49.2 certainly doesn’t constitute bad numbers, but his strike rate of just 70.2 is not get our 300+ mojo back.

• 8/10/08 13(35) vs NSW

• 24/10/08 56(78) vs Tas
• 16/11/08 104(119) vs SA
• 26/11/08 39(72) vs VIC
• 20/12/08 78(108) vs VIC
• 23/12/08 5(8) vs NSW

If we were after a reliable batsman then Simon Katich would have to be the first picked, selecting Voges in this form to me makes little sense.

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.

Perhaps the corporate function is more to your budget, where you’ll get endless bottles of Crown Lager – officialy Australia’s worst beer in Australia’s prettiest bottle, not to mention Wolfblass Wines as endorsed by Stuart MacGill himself, unless Roy drinks them dry. Throw in accommodation at the Langham Hotel and the $1,175 per person is the cheapest night out this side of Sizzler.

Don’t delay in sending your cash as you could be up close and personal with the team who not only lost to India in India, but also lost at home to South Africa in both a test and ODI series. This is your very own opportunity to be amongst the exclusive and limited 1,500 guests and tens of thousands of TV viewers who get to see the former world number 1′s on big screen TV’s.

What’s more, you can join the rampant speculation of who’ll win this most prestegious of awards, judged over the 12 Test matches played since the 2008 AB gong was taken out by Brett Lee. There were tours to the West Indies and India, plus we hosted New Zealand and South Africa this year. Here’s the candidates for the AB Medal with Moses’ odds attached

The Good

• 2:1 | Mitchell Johnson with 54 wickets at 27.07 plus 327 very handy runs at 21.8 (comparable to Hayden). Mitchell is also unbackable favourite to bring the hottest date for the night.

• 2:1 | Simon Katich who made the most of his return to Test Cricket with 1129 runs at 56.45, and even managed a wicket from the 19 overs Ricky gave him
• 3:1 | Michael Clarke with 1019 runs at 56.61 and 6 wickets at 69.33
• 50:1 | Phil Jaques who scored 243 at 40.83 from 3 Tests before being dropped for Hayden, then picked up a back injury.
• 75:1 | Brad Haddin with 736 runs at 38.73, 42 catches and netting the record for most byes by an Australian ‘keeper
• 225:1 | Peter Siddle debuted quietly enough but has grown into a fair backup for Johnson. His 4 tests netted 17 runs at 31.29, while his batting picked up 75 runs at 15. He’s injured now too.

The Bad

• 40:1 | Michael Hussey with 721 runs at 34.33 and breakthrough wicket of Paul Harris
• 70:1 | Brett Lee battled divorce, poor form and injury yet still took 39 wickets at 36.69
• 80:1 | Shane Watson who’s body held up for 5 Tests was able to score 176 at 19.55 and take 12 wickets at 31.25. Then he broke his back.
• 1000:1 | Beau Casson went to the Windies as MacGilla’s understudy, then Stuey pulled the cork on his career and Casson got a Test. His figures of 1/129 were enough to have him not only dropped from the team but also have his CA contract not renewed.

The Ugly

• 40:1 | Ricky Ponting’s captaincy record of 5 wins (2 NZ, 2 WI, 1 SA), 4 losses and a 3 draws as captain. His batting has also slipped with 974 runs at 44.27
• 100:1 | Cameron White. Picked as our specialist spinner on turning tracks in India, he sort of tied up one end for a little while and scraped 5 wickets at 68.4, which surprised him so much he cried. Our very own Ashley Giles, he also hit 146 runs at 29.2. Dropped for the dead rubber for Krezja, who took 12 wickets.
• 500:1 | Stuart MacGill took 5 wickets at 65, and probably wishes Warney retired 5 years ago.
• 500:1 | Matthew Hayden dominating all comers with 383 runs at 23.93
• 300:1 | Andrew Symonds the “all rounder” who bowled under 6 overs per innings and picked up 2 wickets at 65. Oh, he’s a batsman now. Fair enough then. Well, he scored 431 runs at 39.18 and with a high score of 79 from his 13 innings with 10 starts he was unable to convert any to a century. Also made the front pages for all the wrong reasons. Faced a suspension for going fishing instead of playing Cricket, called Prince Brendan a lump of shit, enjoyed glancing at Hayden’s wife and was generally a prize clown

The biggest sporting event on dafyyd’s calendar is of course the Ashes between Australia and Wales. and England. dafyyd is stoked that the Ashes are to be played in Cardiff this time, meaning he can go to a home game without having to visit another country for the first time in his life. dafyyd got tickets to all 5 days through his local cricket club, and can’t wait for the series to kick off. He hopes the test will last into the 5th day as he would love for nothing more than to celebrate his 20th birthday with a victory.

It pains dafyyd to reflect on his life as a Welsh cricket supporter, as he realises all to quickly his team have only held the most coveted of trophies for merely 462 days of his lifetime. Upon reaching his 20th birthday, that will be just 6.33% of his entire lifetime, which dafyyd realises all too well that in a two horse race that alternates home ground advantage, is a pretty písspoor effort.

He tries not to over analyse this, however sometimes he gives in to temptation and tries to aggregate it out over his lifetime. He thinks, what if we could have held the Ashes on the first Sunday and Monday of every month for my whole life, apart from December. That would have been sweet.

The happiest moment in dafyyd’s life was of course back in 2005, when England and Wales regained the Ashes for the first time in his life. He promptly joined the facebook fangroup for Aleem Dar, to show his appreciation for the Martyn, Katich and Kasprowicz dismissals at Trent Bridge, and booked himself a train ticket to London to watch the triumphant open topped bus through the city. Oh the happy memories.

Today’s news that The Wisden Cricketer are looking to interview fans just like dafyyd has made him very excited, as like many fans in that part of the world he has ignored the 2006 series and would like to relive past glory when, for 462 very very happy days, they held the trophy. Bravo dafyyd.

Used Car Salesman

Our chase tactics yesterday worked very well, one batsman grafting and the other dominating. Katich played a superb knock and ensured there was no batting collapse while Hayden and Ponting rocketed along at close to a run a ball.

Then Ponting got out and the wheels came off. Michael Hussey joined Simon Katich and we had two grafters happy to leave the short and wide balls in the pursuit of a big total. Had Ponting shown some flexibility and identified roles for his batsmen, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin or Mitchell Johnson would have been the next man in and we’d have a further 50 runs in the bank.

I’m really missing the pre-declaration slog, we’ve got the cattle in our squad and to declare without giving Haddin or Johnson a swing makes no sense to me. Perhaps it’s bought about through denial of Hussey’s form?

This would have pushed their required run rate closer to 3.75, a considerable lift from 3.30. Plus we’d have handed them the opportunity to chase the highest 4th innings total of all time to go with the ODI record we gave them in Joburg.

Either way, if this had stuck we’d be sitting a lot happier

9.4 Siddle to Amla, 2 runs, Haddin’s dropped him! Thats a good delivery from Siddle, pitching and straightening off a length, Amla pushes at it off the back foot and gets a healthy edge but Haddin, diving low to his right, fluffs the take, tough though it was

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

Left Arm Chinaman

Sure our spinning stocks look depleted, but replacing a genuine attacking off-spinner for Ashley fúcking Giles is beyond obscene. This Queensland reject can’t even get a start for his new state who already depleted with 5 players on National Service. To look at the spinning options available he’s unlikely to feature in a top 5 of those who are actually playing domestic cricket, many of whom can also bat. Anyway, looks like we’re stuck with the prick while the quicks take wickets from the other end, and at least he can help us draw matches with his defensive lines.

What really has me stumped though, is what the hell is wrong with Ponting that he just refuses to bowl Simon Katich? After giving him for a few overs early on in India and seeing how well he turned the ball he’s been pretty much completely ignored with the ball. Perhaps the aggression that Katto brings to the task of bowling that doens’t fit with Pontings ideals of a metrosexual bollywood singing bowler?

If fit, Katto’s bowling record should at the very least get him at few token overs. Let us compare him to our specialist spinner, Nathan Hauritz.

Katich has taken 87 1st class wickets to Hauritz’ 81, despite Hauritz having bowled 40% more deliveries. Katto averages 37.8 compared to Hauritz 47.2, roughly 20% less. His strike Rate is 62.5 compared to Hauritz 93.8, which is to say it takes Hauritz approximately 1/3 more deliveries to pick up a wicket than Katich.

Katich has bowled fewer balls in 4.5 times more matches, so it’d be a safe assumption that he bowls many fewer overs per match. In spite of this, Katto has three 5 wicket hauls to Hauritz none.

Best figures in a first class match? 7/130 for Katto, again shades the Queenslanders best figures of 4/95.

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..