Tag Archives: cricket

Super Sunday Sports Multi

January 25, 2015 By in Shumpty Speaks, Shumpty's Punt Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

After a solid day on the punt yesterday, I found myself drawn to the plethora of sport that is on today and have come up with this seven leg multi that I am quietly confident about:

Leg 1: New Zealand to defeat Sri Lanka in ODI cricket.

Leg 2: Eugenie Bouchard to defeat Irina-Camella Begu 2-0 at the Australian Open.

Leg 3: Maria Sharapova to defeat Shuai Peng 2-0 at the Australian Open.

Leg 4: Washington Wizards to defeat the Portland Trail Blazers by a margin of 1-10 points in the NBA.

Leg 5: Tomas Berdych to defeat Bernard Tomic 3-0 at the Australian Open.

Leg 6: South Africa to defeat the West Indies in ODI cricket.

Leg 7: Perth Scorchers to defeat the Melbourne Stars in BBL cricket.

The first leg of this multi kicks off at 8am (Brisbane time) so be sure to get your bets on in time.

The multi should pay just a shade under $50 for every dollar invested.

As always:

1. Please gamble responsibly.
2. Whilst all care is taken with these tips, no responsibility vests for losses incurred.

Good luck!!!!

Dear David: An open letter to David Warner

January 19, 2015 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , 2 Comments

Dear David,

I am sorry to see that you have again been involved in an on field fracas that has led to you being fined.  This year we have seen you involved in these things in a number of fixtures, continuing a form line of conduct that has been a constant during your career.

I confess to you David that I am not a fan of yours.  I concede openly that you are one of the most devastating stroke players in the game and that you are fast become one of the icons of the game in this country.  Channel 9 has anointed you as one of the faces of the game and not a day goes by during the season where you are not in the press in some way.

I do not write to you to express my own thoughts about your sledging and aggressive conduct.  I have written before that I have become less engaged with the game (that I have loved for over 30 years) in part because of the way Australia plays the game and your conduct is no small part of that. Rehashing that is not my purpose.

I write to you simply to ask you to stop! Please stop! I hear all the time that there are thousands upon thousands of young cricketers who just want to be like you.  They want to bat like you.  They want to field like you. They follow your every move.  When they see you on the TV they absorb everything you do, both the good and the bad.  That means they are absorbing both the slashing cover drive that bounces off the pickets and you standing face to face in the middle of the pitch yelling at an opponent.

Kids are great mimics: I can remember trying to replicate the actions of bowlers that I enjoyed watching.  I am sure that there are young batters trying to blast a ball through backward point just like you do.  I am scared that there are young players who think it is OK to stand toe to toe with an opponent in the middle of the pitch.

My nephew is just starting to get into cricket and went to his first game a couple of weekends ago.  He still thinks that his uncle, who bowled slow medium outswingers that did not swing and whose only shot was a cover drive, is his favourite cricketer.  That will not last long: soon I fear that you will be his favourite cricketer and he will start to mimic you, both the good and the bad.

So again: I ask you to stop! Not for lifelong fans like me but for the next generations of young fans who don’t know or don’t understand that what you are doing is not the way the game of cricket should be played.

Thank you.

Best regards,

A concerned uncle and cricket fan

AB de Villiers: are you serious???

January 18, 2015 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , Leave a comment

AB de Villiers has just smashed the fastest ODI century in the history of the game. 31 balls to get to a hundred with 10 6s and 8 4s. That is just amazing batting!!!

There is oft conjecture about who is the best player in the world and, indeed, the best batter. Frankly that conjecture is pure fiction in my view: AB de Villiers in the best cricketer in the world hands down. One only need to look at his importance to his team coupled with his record to know that.

Smith, Warner and Kholi are battling for the second prize in this race but are a long way back as today’s innings has again shown!

South Africa must be the favourites for the coming World Cup and should win it so long as de Villiers stays on the park.

Agar into the Australian Test Squad: how did that happen?

December 31, 2014 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Regular readers of this blog will have read my rants about the work of Cricket Australia’s National Selection Panel. I have griped for years, even before I had this blog, that form in red ball cricket seems to count for little at the Cricket Australia Selection table and have even been left to ponder whether Cricket Australia ought just fold the first class competition for all of the relevance it has to the selection of the test team. I am sad to say that again this morning I find myself griping and pondering the same things again after the elevation of Ashton Agar to the Australian squad for the 4th test in Sydney.

Agar’s stat line in first class cricket this year does not make for happy reading: 7 wickets at 45.14 in 4 games is, frankly just not good enough. Add that lack of form to a first class career stat line of 62 wickets at 44.00 with a strike rate of 81 balls per wicket and the head scratching that started when pondering Agar’s selection on current form starts to draw blood.

If there were no other spinners playing in first class cricket in Australia at the moment then this selection might make more sense. However there are other spinners plying their trade around the country who appear to be vastly more qualified to play in Sydney against India. The three main contenders are:

  • The form leg spinner: Fawad Ahmed has been in excellent form for Victoria this season with a stat line of 18 wickets at 30.72 and a strike rate of 51 balls per wicket. His first class numbers, 95 wickets at 32.16 with a strike rate of 54.3 balls per wicket, make for much more pallatable reading than those of Agar and he has been in the Cricket Australia system before.
  • The best left arm orthodox bowler in the country: Steve O’Keefe is the best left arm orthodox bowler in Australia. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. 141 wickets at 25.81 with a strike rate of just under a wicket every 10 overs in a first class career makes for excellent reading. This summer he has done his job for New South Wales with the ball with 9 wickets at 28.44 gives him the best average of our sample of bowlers. Again he has been in the Cricket Australia system before too which has to be in his favour.
  • The young leg spinner: Cameron Boyce, seemingly, has been anointed as Australia’s next leg spin hope given his selection for T20 honours this year where he performed excellently. His first class record is worse that Agar’s however he seems to be following the currently accepted path to the top team via the shortest form of the game so his non-selection is a surprise.
In the context of these three contenders is there a cogent argument for Agar’s elevation to the team? I am struggling to find one. Of course my search for a cogent argument has been focused on the immediate cricket reasons for his possible selection: I neglected to include the fact that he has a significant profile in the game begat by his 98 runs on debut and the fact that he looks like the lost member of One Direction.

Surely though this selection can not be all about profile? Darren Lehmann does not strike me as a coach who would accept such a selection. Then again Lehmann was at the helm during the disaster, 98 runs aside, that was Agar’s debut 2 tests so he must have played some role in his return here.

I just do not understand it and am left again to ponder why Cricket Australia continues to pay for the Sheffield Shield to be run when it does not use the form coming from that competition to reward those players playing in it.

For what it is worth, I think there is zero chance that Agar will play in Sydney and have no doubt he will be released to his BBL team during the game. That is cold comfort one suspects to those others who are more deserving of selection, particularly Steve O’Keefe.

Cricket: when did a test match draw become such a bad thing?

December 30, 2014 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I have gotten more and more frustrated this morning as commentators and fans alike have discussed over and over again when Australia will declare today and, as the morning as worn on, why Steve Smith has not declared.
 
 Has everyone forgotten there is a result in a test match called a draw?
 
 Situationally has everyone missed the fact that Australia leads the series 2-0 and wins the series with a draw?
 
 Some of the best test matches I have seen and read about have ended in draws yet the current generation of commentators and fans seem to have forgotten the draw as even a result.
 
 To me a good result today for Australia is to make sure that India don’t win. It is as simple as that. A win is a bonus and a great result but making sure India don’t win is the more important thing.
 
 Or maybe the game has changed that much we should just remove the draw as an available result?
 
 
 – Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Steve Smith v George Bailey: who should deputise for Clarke in WC2015?

December 28, 2014 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Let’s face reality: as confident as Michael Clarke is that he will be fit for the World Cup in March 2015 there is a more than even money chance it would seem that he will not be available for selection in all fixtures (if any). This, of course, raises the question of who ought deputise for him. The incumbent in this role is George Bailey however the sharp rise of Steve Smith to the captainancy in test match cricket means there is a conversation to be had about who should take the roll in 3 months time.

Bailey has done little wrong in the role of captain. Unfortunately his batting in 2014 in one day fixtures has not been up to standard; viz, in 17 matches played he has averaged 25 whilst scoring 405 runs with 3 fifties and no hundreds.

I am a firm believer in picking the best eleven players available for selection in the team and then selecting the captain. Steve Smith is firmly entrenched in the best eleven cricketers available for selection but I am not sure that George Bailey is similarly entrenched given his form and:

  • Warner, Finch, Clarke (if fit), Smith, Maxwell and Watson (if bowling) pick themselves and are in the best available eleven in this form of the game.
  • White, Ferguson, Burns and Dunk, to name just 4 batters, all performed very well in Matador BBQs Cup which should be a form of selection trial for the World Cup.

Had Steve Smith not performed so well as captain in the test matches (I know it is a small sample but early signs are good) I have no doubt that there would be less of a question about Bailey’s captaincy: he would have been carried despite his bad form. This approach would have been detrimental to Australia’s chances of winning in my view. Smith’s elevation to test captaincy makes this issue significantly easier to deal with and now the NSP can select the best eleven players available without worrying about the captaincy.

Interestingly, I know wonder if Steve Smith will unite the captaincies of Australian cricket teams across all three forms of the game? He is a solid T20 player who has not had much of a run in the side of late. Maybe Aaron Finch’s time as captain in that form of the game is also in danger of running out given the rise of Steve Smith. Only time will tell.