Australian T20

I had plans to go to the first List A level T20 of the Australian summer, but they were discarded in light of the weather forecast and the fact that I haven't quite shaken the flu that kept me in bed for nearly 5 days, not to mention my intended companions' plans, reactions to the weather, and our general views on getting home from Rooty Hill after 10 on a Wednesday night.

As it turned out, the cracking thunderstorm was gone hours before, and it was traffic that held up the start of Blacktown Olympic Park's introduction to big time cricket. Once Sri Lanka had made it west¹, we hear that Jayawardene took the attack apart, rain interrupted the Blues innings, and they fell well short. While it was hardly the full strength team that provides half the players for Sunday's international, I think it's fair to say NSW would have expected a better result, last night, and as they started the second portion of their innings against Tasmania last week.

On the topic of full strength teams, it's worth noting that Test and ODI players are not available for the Big Bash at all, so for all the chatter, Michael Clarke really should be looking for an IPL opportunity if being the T20 captain and having the appropriate experience is at all important to him. Either CA leave him free to focus on other things, or he should be ready to go to whoever will have him.

But as we see in the news today, the Big Bash with its state teams and clashes with the international schedule is set to be short-lived. At first I had really trouble trying to see why this had popped up in the news today, asking myself what part of it we hadn't already heard.

An 8-team league is the plan, and while one report mentions second teams in Melbourne and Sydney, most stick with the old line that the last two locations are yet to be determined, allowing continued speculation about Geelong, Newcastle, Canberra, the Gold Coast, etc. The only development seems to be in the financing and ownership - my understanding of earlier reports was that CA would hold off on private ownership for a limited time, getting things going with (at least) 6 of the franchises in the hands of the state associations. The only change now seems to be that some associations would welcome investment and offers of some sort have been made. It might be sooner than expected, but I think that's where it was headed the whole time.

The real deal?

Cricinfo's headline seems a bit harsh on WI and Ireland, ahead of tonight/tomorrow morning's match.

Thinking a bit further, it would seem to be just as slack to NZ and SL. Just what does count as the real deal in this tournament?

I'm still not convinced Australia (the team) sees the tournament as a whole as the real deal, but they could pull off a fair bit if the bowlers fire.

The whole thing doesn't seem too predictable - partly because of the format, but also because international T20 is still pretty rare.

Mercurial

We all know the evidence behind the hype about Pakistanis and T20, but isn't it intriguing to think about what could possibly lead to a fielding performance several orders of magnitude better than what they put up in the Tests?

Twenty lessons

This is the second edition of the T20 international tournament, and any number of high and low profile other T20 tournaments have preceded it. All the teams should have had plenty of time to develop strategies exploiting both the similarities and differences between 20 (or 7) over games and the longer formats.

The West Indies have learnt that it doesn't matter how many wides you bowl in the first over, as long as you take two wickets as well. I don't think that's much consolation for Steve Harmison.

Scotland have learnt that the only way to respond to missing out on a World Cup is to leave the shorter world cup in an astoundingly short time.

Australia either haven't learnt much at all or still don't care. Just start with the team - apart from the more debatable selections, Brett Lee at this point in time is clearly not a serious WC-type selection - he is a let's get him some match time before the other event of the winter selection.

The captain still doesn't look like he can think quickly enough for T20 - then again, he doesn't think that well in any other format. As for the batting, after the initial trouble, we saw nothing more than an example of turning up the tempo on standard 50 over attacking batting. It's hard to get too risky when you've lost early wickets, but I can't help wondering whether they simply hadn't realised that the Oval's boundaries are much much smaller than the MCG's.

I'm not yet convinced of the ongoing success of the 3-hour game, but I'd like to enjoy it when it's on. I'd also like see my country do well - I'll support them tonight, but in light of the way they've treated this tournament, Jrod isn't the only one who's more interested in success of Dirk and the Dutchmen.

Short tours

It looks like the Australian selectors have decided it is worth sending some T20 specialists along for two very short matches in the new home of twenty-over-cricket. I don't recall this happening much before - I guess it shows that the World Championship is coming up. I'm sure the relevant IPL teams would appreciate it as well, although who knows what's going to happen next in that department. The 80 overs and then the ODI series should be interesting, although I doubt that they'll live up to the Test series, even if the last Test was a bit of a disappointment from my own point of view.

In the meantime, while the weather wouldn't suggest it, it's time for another sport which fits well in a 3-hour window, even if the new sporting channel planning its whole open around the opening game of the season has decided it isn't important enough in this state...