Monday 16 November 2009

Things we have learned from SA vs Eng Pro20

1. South Africans still call Twenty20 Pro20. As opposed to Amateur20, presumably [insert own England joke here].

2. Graeme Smith and Alistair Cook were both left-handed openers and [for one game] captains. The similarities ended there.

3. Graeme Smith's technique shouldn't work, but does. Saj Mahmood's technique should work, but doesn't.

4. Strike rates of 200+ will soon be de rigeur.

5. Eion Morgan will probably find that his sixes are called DLF Maximums at certain magical times of the year.

6. He might be the first England batsman to make the Test team based on T20 form. He averaged 23 in first class cricket for Middlesex last season. In division two.

7. That might not be a bad thing.

8. Duckworth-Lewis still doesn't seem to work properly for T20. England felt way more than one run ahead in the first game.

9. Alistair Cook could one day actually cry in a post match interview.

10. Andy Flower does seem to know what's wrong. 

4 comments:

Vim said...

England felt way more ahead? Blimey, I thought they came out of that very well, as one over before they would have lost the match, so how do you make that out?

Brit said...

I agree with OB, they did feel way more ahead that 1 run, with the wickets going down. I was confident they'd win (not often I say that about England).

A lesson I took is that a very few personnel changes is the difference between a rotten side and one with a shot. What's more, add Broad, Flintoff and Pietersen to the team from the first game (Mahmood, Cook and Bresnan out) and it suddenly looks a surprisingly formidable outfit.

Brit said...

Not that it ever works out like that of course.

The Old Batsman said...

Hi Vim, was thinking of a more general point about D-L [obviously it doesn't take account of who's playing - actually that would be fun, getting them to implement an England loading...] in that it doesn't work well for T20. In the first SA-Eng game, I would back the fielding side to win from that position 6 or 7 times out of 10. SA were behind the rate, their rate of scoring was dropping, had two new batsmen at the crease with strike rates of 100, under lights, not much batting to come and a reasonably high amount of overs [7] to keep a high strike rate going. I'd say England were effectively more like 10 runs ahead. SA needed four or five good overs to get home. England would have needed only one good over to really tilt the balance of probability their way.

Brit, good point, yes not a bad side [on paper, unfortunately they don't play on paper they play on grass etc etc!]