The Wolfman's Cricket Blog

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I hate Twenty20 cricket

As a kid (I say that at the old age of 17) you always liked to play Twenty20 cricket, and regarded it as fun. After playing yesterday for the first time in three years I had a longing for the slow, serene pace of 50 over cricket. The whole match was just was a boring slog fest, and in no way resembled the proper cricket I am now used to. I can take positives and negatives out of the game though.

Negatives
We lost
My average is now cut half from 74 to 39.

Positives
We are through to the next round
I have decided not to count Twenty20 cricket as part of my average, so it remains at 74

Yes, you may say the positives somewhat contradicted the negatives, but the reason for the first one, as strange as it may sound, is because our opponents conceded the match before it was played. Yes, you are thinking what the hell.... but it is because it was meant to be a 3rd team match, and they didn't have enough 3rd teamers available, so they played 1st and 2nd teamers, and conceded the game. So that made the match just a friendly.

So we lost the toss and batted first on a stupid artificial wicket with uneven bounce, we got shot out for 48 last season in a 50 over match on the very same wicket. The format was 15 eight ball overs, which equates to the same as 20 six ball overs. I opened and scored four, two singles and a big hyke over mid-off for two, before stepping back and missing a straight one trying to repeat the shot. We managed to cobble together 79 runs, of which I can safely say the proper cricket shots didn't figure often in the scoring, before being all out in the 14th over. A couple of comic run outs, the last of which meant both our betters ended up at the same end, compounded our misery.

They never looked in trouble chasing, as I said their players were a level above us and we weren't at the races. We managed to take four wickets, and kept them batting until the 11th over. I had a catch dropped off my one over, which went for about 10 runs.
 
Re: The Wolfman's Cricket Blog

wolf said:
I have decided not to count Twenty20 cricket as part of my average, so it remains at 74
Click to expand...

That is the fantastic thing about statistics...

...you can do what you like with them ;)
 
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Yes I am sure if I had got a not out it would have been added to the average. :laugh:
 
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Sounds good fun.

I'm in a similar thing with my bowling average atm. I have to decide whether to include school cricket in it cos it's like, different. Basically they slog a lot and never nick the good balls!! Without school my average is 19, with school its 57 :p
 
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Not the best day at the office yesterday, we only managed a losing draw. Track was a batters paradise with a quick outfield. Bowlers bowled shocking first up and they were rocketing along at about 140-3 after 25 overs. We unearthed a new star though, a 14 year old making his debut took 3-47 of 17 overs, and also contributed with the bat later on, and we managed to keep them to 229-7 off the 50 overs. I fielded on the boundary all innings, bit annoyed with my captain for that, I was wasted out there.

We were terribly short on batters, and I was pushed into the openng role. My fellow opener had already made 17 before I faced a ball! We put on 88 for the first wicket of about 12 overs anyway, before I perished for 25 edging to the keeper standing up. I played five great cut shots for four, and was in good touch. The other opener managed 70, but as I said no depth in the batting, and the people who were there were more blockers than shot makers and the run rate fell and the wickets tumbled, I think three others got into their twenties, including the kid I mentioned earlier, who survived 5 overs with the last man to get the losing draw and finish on 188-9, which gives us six points (2 points for the losing draw, 2 batting points, two bowling points).

Still top of the league as second place got a losing draw as well, but 3rd and 4th are closing in with a game in hand (a team pulled out so one team doesn't play every week.)
 
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Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

I played the innings of my life on Saturday, scoring 81* to guide my team to a narrow three wicket victory.

The story of the day started with us winning the toss and fielding on a nice track. The reasoning behind that is it takes out the opposition's capacity to play for a losing draw. The game started well for us, and me personally. I conducted a run out in the second over, and also took a catch three balls later, both from point. I incredibly should have had a second run out in the third over, but my throw was over the keepers’ head and the chance was missed. A strange partnership began then to form for the third wicket, with one guy scoring freely and the other just blocking. From memory they were about 75-2 at drinks (25 overs). They both fell soon after drinks though, one for 50 odd, and I don't think the other guy got to 20, and wickets fell at regular intervals, although their no.5 held the innings together with 42, and their tail stuck around for a bit. They ended up on 166 all out with one ball to spare, which we felt was a reasonable effort on a good batting track.

Like last week though, our batting wasn't the strongest, and was even weaker because our best batsmen was in Turkey. Our openers put on 32 in six overs, but we lost two wickets in two balls. I was batting at no.3, and me and the no.4 put on another 32 before he got out. I was batting really poorly to be honest but the main thing was I was still there. From being 64-2 though, we suddenly found ourselves about 96-7 of around 30 overs, most of the wickets were edges which were caught behind, including one memorable dismissal which the keeper standing up got a glove on it, it then richoshaded to first slip who stuck a hand out and then parried it to a gobsmacked second slip who took the catch. Anyway, I felt we had a decent no.10 who could bat, but I found an unlikely saviour in our no.9, who played an excellent supporting role. I basically said to him when he came in "mate, I just need someone to stay with me, if we bat our overs out we’ll win”. So he did an excellent job of holding up one end and trying to give me the strike and the runs began to flow for me, I brought up my 50 with 118 on the board. Before I could add to my total I edged behind but the keeper put down the easiest of easy chances, straight to him at knee height. Anyway we chipped away at the total after that and made sure they didn’t get another chance to get us out. I knew we would win when with 20 to win I scored a pulled six. Unfortunately I didn’t score the winning runs lol, the no.9 whacking it through mid-wicket for his only boundary of the innings! We won with 5.5 overs to spare.
 
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Great stuff mate. Shame you didn't get the winning runs, but at least you stuck out there till the end. Hopefully that win put you further up the table
 
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Another day, another win. Unfortunately my form this season with the bat finally came to an end, I was out for five.

The description of the opposition is a **** hole ground and a **** hole team, and that is putting it nicely. The ground is surrounded by dog kennels, which means if the ball goes over the fence that surrounds short boundary there is no retrieving it, and there is a constant sound of barking throughout the match. The team were mainly made up of a bunch of moaning overweight middle aged men, and it is no surprise they are second from bottom in the league.

Anyway, we won the toss and batted first. I opened but was out in the 5th over, going back to one I should have gone forward to and getting bowled off my thigh. I felt afterwards instead of scratching about for runs I should play a bit more freely, I feel I have a good eye and play aggressively but not irrationaly, it would stand me in better stead. It turned out me getting out wasn't all bad anyway, as we had a ringer at no.3 who hit a sublime century, full of big hitting and a lots of lost balls. He survived a close LBW shout in his 80's, turned down by yours truely to provoke a mouthful of abuse by the disbelieving bowler. With our no.4 hitting a supporting half century, we declared at 220-4 after 40 overs, to give us 60 overs to bowl them out.

After a wicket in the first over, I produced a run out in the second over for the second game in the row, this time one of the batters started to run the second but the other stayed put, and the former was left stranded after my accurate throw. We continued to chip away, their no.5 scored 40 odd, but apart from that they didn't put up much resistance, collapsing to 95-9. I bowled 3 overs for 17, unlucky to always bowl to the one guy in form, who was caning me through the off side. Their last wicket pair hung around for 25 overs for about 60 runs, the most annoying stand I have ever seen, but they still fell 15 overs short of the losing draw and 63 runs short of the win, they were all out for 158.
 
Re: The Wolfman's Cricket Blog

Man you must have a great lead on top of the table now. Awesome work with the run out!

I like your view on how you should play - aggressively but not irrationally. I think that I should try that approach this season, I feel I need to be a bit more eager for runs and start loosening up more rather than always tight and over cautious.

Good shtuff.
 
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The thing is we don't have that big a lead. The teams in 2nd and 3rd keep winning as well and cranking up the pressure, they are 4 and 19 points behind us respectively, with the team in 3rd having a game in hand (it's 20 or 25 points for a win, depending on who bats first).
 
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Ooooooooohhhh.

That's stupid that you get the points advantage for batting first.
 
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The idea behind it is if you bat second you have the capacity to go for the losing draw, so you get less points for winning.

To make it work you just have to abolish the losing draw, it just promotes negative cricket anyway. I mean, you get points for just blocking all innings!
 
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I don't really get it. Shouldn't the team batting second get more for a win to make sure they don't go for the draw? I'm confused.
 
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That might actually make more sense, but then everyone would just win the toss and bowl first, at least the way it is you have to choose between going for the full 25 points but with the risk you could only get the winning draw, or play safe and go for the 20 points.
 
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Oh I see it now, it's because the team that bats last can control the game more, like if they can't win they can just go for the draw whereas the team batting first has to take a risk that the game won't be as much in their hands. Ahh.
 
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Last 16 of the Twenty20 knockout last night. We went down in the final over. We batted first and put on 109, which always seemed a bit short. I batted at 5 and scored 12 with a couple of nice fours. Rubbish shot to get out with though, head up in air attempting a slog and got out. We bowled and fielded OK, but we were always struggling to defend and didn't pick up enough wickets to put the pressure on.
 
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We won again. Again we left it late but we got 25 more points.

We lost the toss and batted. Our top 4 all contributed, with scores ranging from 20 to 40. I came in after 37 overs with the score on about 130 (from memory) and got off the mark with a cover drive for four first ball, but bogged down a bit after that and ended up chipping a catch to mid-off. At least our 7&8 put on a quick partnership, and the score ended up at 210-9. The highlight of the match was the last ball of our innings though. Our no.11 who is like 13 played a nice cover drive which would have normally been only 1, but they decided to chance a second, which they made, but the keeper attempted to throw the stumps down which he did but the batsmen was miles in and it rebounded off the stumps for an otherthrow. The ball went down to fine leg, who was clearly struggling with an injury and he sort of tried to hop towards it but as he was struggling the batsmen took a fourth run, by this time our 13 yr old no.11 pads which were clearly too big for him had pretty much fallen off.

We started off our bowling a bit shakey about from one early wicket, not helped by this batter who had more lives than a cat. A dropped chance, and I should have run him out no less than three times, and the guy seriously must have done about 10 inside edges that missed the stumps. Anyway, his partner was going nicely until I caught him at deep square leg, a nice catch running forward. I make that six catches for me so far this season, and with only one dropped that's not a bad ratio! The wickets fell more regulary for us after that, our leggie taking a brilliant six wicket haul, and we wrapped it up in the 48th over (phew), they were about 155 all out.
 
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