Would love to hand it to them but it was a very fortunate win by the Rhinos. Neither of Taylor & Ballance should have made half their scores! Both of them should have perished to decent catching chances. Headless bowling by the Tuskers also contributed - particularly all the full tosses which an off form Ballance was&should be good enough to put away. More a Tuskers loss than a Rhinos win. Still you have to make the most of it and for that I can say well done to Rhinos.
With most of their batsmen idling around, wouldn't be a bad idea to bring in Mpofu for one of the batsmen. Gayle&Dabengwa can fill in here and there.
The Tuskers are too far ahead of everyone else in every department not to win it. Changes are needed. My team for their match in the final:
Gayle, Horton, Coventry(wk), Ervine, Ewing(c), Smith, Dabengwa, Meth, Querl, Ncube, Mpofu
[Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
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hhm
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Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
1Mawoyo 2Vusi 3Hami 4Taylor(c) 5Craig 6Matsi 7Taibu(wk) 8Elton 9Cremer 10Rainsford 11Mpofu 12Jarvis
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betterdays
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Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
Great thing about T20 - anyone can have a good day and if you play enough the chances soar ... I don't know him enough to comment though but I've seen enough Indian nobody's score heavily in ONE ipl to know there's no knowingaydee wrote:Quite a few actually... Well played sir.foreignfield wrote:Did someone say Gary Ballance did not have a game for T20?
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betterdays
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Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
So is there any homegrown batting talent in Bulawayo at the moment? Are they all playing for other teams? 
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CrimsonAvenger
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Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
Looking at the scorecard, Mugava has impressed again. His first T20, and that seemed an outstanding bowling effort when you see the bowling figures of others around him. Definitely a star in the making for the Rhinos.
Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
Rhinos Vs Tuskers
A must win game for the rhinos and I was expecting the Tuskers to do a little bit of experimentation and get match practice for their middle order. But Houghton's interview revealed he would like to knock the Rhinos right out of the tournament. The Tuskers must be drinking enemy blood in skulls after each game to maintain their killer instinct.
Tuskers innings
More of the same. Same script, same actors on a much more benign batting wicket. It was obvious to everyone that this pitch was full of runs to begin with.
Gayle: Controlled aggression. Was tamed between overs 13 and 19.4. Got two sixes of the last two balls otherwise the score would have looked much more embarrasing.
Paul "Ball-hog" Horton: His strategy to hold wickets worked in the first two games when the pitch was two faced and holding up a bit sometimes. But today it was so full of runs even Cremer wanted to have a go. Poor Chappie Coventry put his helmet on in as early as the 5th over itching to get in. Unfortunately Horton made sure his chance would never come. I had to concede that he did play the spinners well. It was against the seamers that he got unstuck. He took I think 7 deliveries before he got off the mark and then every now and then he would take 2 or more balls to turn the strike over.
Technically it still counts as rotating the strike except the rotation does not happen as often as it should have.
If the Tuskers continue to use this tactic it might end up being counter-productive b'coz honestly I think the opposition will be happy to let Horton bat. If he takes up 60 deliveries like he did today and scores 40 odd he would indirectly have restricted how big the overall score will become. Some teams used this brilliantly in the IPL & CLT to let Kallis bat till he got a fifty or so. But even he would accelerate after a while and get 80 odd of 60 giving the impression that he was actually contributing and selling his all-round skills to the clueless team management. Gotta give credit to the SA selectors for keeping him far away from the T20 proceedings (nor acknowledging his ipl exploits as a baseline for selection). He did score runs but the opposition never feared him.
The same strategy can be used by other teams here to get some cheap overs in. Horton needs to score boundaries or get out of the way in the knockout games. Why is this man heartless and not like the idea of charity? (I think its 10 bucks for each 6 and 5 for each 4).
Muzhange & Mugava & Tait: Brilliant. Choked the tuskers during the business end of things from 13 to 20. Bowled yorker after yorker with such accuracy even Gayle could not do much. Mugava did what Cremer could not.
Rhinos Innings
The score was chaseable given the depth of talent although the batting order ended abruptly with Waller.
Meth: Showed that he can extract swing regardless of the conditions or time of day. The bowler I would pay to watch dismissed the batsman I would have liked to watch (Wessels). Got hit for a couple of sixes but you always had the feeling he was on the verge of picking up another. Always puts the squeeze on and keeps the game in check as long as he is bowling.
I thought he had a good lbw appeal against Taylor turned down. It was not just a good shout it was dead duck plumb. May be I am biased or I was half asleep but I would like you guys to see and let me know what you think.
(I think the ump was nervous as he is with Gayle and this is understandable given the reputation of the batsmen and the ump would rather turn down the appeal bcoz giving it out now matter how plumb it looks can sometimes end up being controversial. Generally this applies to the indian batsmen also and the umps are scared of their reputation and the iron fist of the cricket board that they dont give them out generally and this is exactly why India does not like using the DRS. I hate watching test matches without DRS as the umps are simply not good enough except Simon Taufel and they generally give not out than out and this drags the game into boring draws most often.)
It was the perfect delivery that could have got taylor coz with his ability to swing the ball and Taylor preemptively walking across his stumps it had to be on the cards. Once again showed he had the class to trouble the batsmen regardless of their pedigree.
Taylor: Superb. He is just reaching towards the peak of his career.
Ballance: I am still in state of shock watching his innings. One of the best t20 innings if not the best I have seen this year. When I saw him in the last two games his stance and footwork looked exactly like a Alistair cook impersonation. Make no mistake this guy is a proven run machine across the other two formats. It was the last person I expected to play such a knock.
Before this innings his career t20 strike rate was 103. 45 minutes later it jumped to 111. He hardly was beaten or had a dot ball. Though his technique resembled Cook against Mountaineers (I think he got run out) and the table bottom rocks today he came out to be spitting image of Jos Buttler (who is one of my fav t20 players) in terms of improvisation.
In contrast with the other two games in the middle order he had little to lose when asked to get 110 of the last 10 overs. He was definitely going for broke and that was evident from his first few shots.
Little did we know he could go back and across before the delivery was bowled so he can be in position to launch it over midwicket even though his task was made easier by being served up full tosses on a regular basis or did we know that he could paddle sweep medium pacers to fine leg for four. Admittedly (post match interview) he has been practising hard.
The first paddle sweep was buttleresque. The second was simply outrageous because it was well outside off stump and he still scooped it for four. The very next ball he tried the reverse scoop and it did not come off. The funny thing was Tom smith repeated the same length over four deliveries.
This is why I should stop making calls on class players. Because I know it will come back sooner than later to bite me in the a**.
Today he showed that he has so much class and that he can
act (test) , sing (odi) and dance (t20) by adapting his game.
During the interview he look like he was determined to make it to a higher level although I have low to medium expectations of him playing for Zimbabwe. If we do get him Zim will have 2 batsmen and a bowler that the opposition will be afraid of.
Dabengwa: Keeps going from bad to worse as the tournament progresses.
NCube: Underbowled. Lack of trust from cap Horton. Should have bowled the 19th instead of Querl or Gayle earlier. I was curious to see how he would have performed under real pressure.
Gayle: Overbowled. I think Chris is a very generous man whether he is batting or bowling. He served up so many full tosses to help out the local charity, I thought he was having a net session rather than a a real game.
A must win game for the rhinos and I was expecting the Tuskers to do a little bit of experimentation and get match practice for their middle order. But Houghton's interview revealed he would like to knock the Rhinos right out of the tournament. The Tuskers must be drinking enemy blood in skulls after each game to maintain their killer instinct.
Tuskers innings
More of the same. Same script, same actors on a much more benign batting wicket. It was obvious to everyone that this pitch was full of runs to begin with.
Gayle: Controlled aggression. Was tamed between overs 13 and 19.4. Got two sixes of the last two balls otherwise the score would have looked much more embarrasing.
Paul "Ball-hog" Horton: His strategy to hold wickets worked in the first two games when the pitch was two faced and holding up a bit sometimes. But today it was so full of runs even Cremer wanted to have a go. Poor Chappie Coventry put his helmet on in as early as the 5th over itching to get in. Unfortunately Horton made sure his chance would never come. I had to concede that he did play the spinners well. It was against the seamers that he got unstuck. He took I think 7 deliveries before he got off the mark and then every now and then he would take 2 or more balls to turn the strike over.
Technically it still counts as rotating the strike except the rotation does not happen as often as it should have.
If the Tuskers continue to use this tactic it might end up being counter-productive b'coz honestly I think the opposition will be happy to let Horton bat. If he takes up 60 deliveries like he did today and scores 40 odd he would indirectly have restricted how big the overall score will become. Some teams used this brilliantly in the IPL & CLT to let Kallis bat till he got a fifty or so. But even he would accelerate after a while and get 80 odd of 60 giving the impression that he was actually contributing and selling his all-round skills to the clueless team management. Gotta give credit to the SA selectors for keeping him far away from the T20 proceedings (nor acknowledging his ipl exploits as a baseline for selection). He did score runs but the opposition never feared him.
The same strategy can be used by other teams here to get some cheap overs in. Horton needs to score boundaries or get out of the way in the knockout games. Why is this man heartless and not like the idea of charity? (I think its 10 bucks for each 6 and 5 for each 4).
Muzhange & Mugava & Tait: Brilliant. Choked the tuskers during the business end of things from 13 to 20. Bowled yorker after yorker with such accuracy even Gayle could not do much. Mugava did what Cremer could not.
Rhinos Innings
The score was chaseable given the depth of talent although the batting order ended abruptly with Waller.
Meth: Showed that he can extract swing regardless of the conditions or time of day. The bowler I would pay to watch dismissed the batsman I would have liked to watch (Wessels). Got hit for a couple of sixes but you always had the feeling he was on the verge of picking up another. Always puts the squeeze on and keeps the game in check as long as he is bowling.
I thought he had a good lbw appeal against Taylor turned down. It was not just a good shout it was dead duck plumb. May be I am biased or I was half asleep but I would like you guys to see and let me know what you think.
(I think the ump was nervous as he is with Gayle and this is understandable given the reputation of the batsmen and the ump would rather turn down the appeal bcoz giving it out now matter how plumb it looks can sometimes end up being controversial. Generally this applies to the indian batsmen also and the umps are scared of their reputation and the iron fist of the cricket board that they dont give them out generally and this is exactly why India does not like using the DRS. I hate watching test matches without DRS as the umps are simply not good enough except Simon Taufel and they generally give not out than out and this drags the game into boring draws most often.)
It was the perfect delivery that could have got taylor coz with his ability to swing the ball and Taylor preemptively walking across his stumps it had to be on the cards. Once again showed he had the class to trouble the batsmen regardless of their pedigree.
Taylor: Superb. He is just reaching towards the peak of his career.
Ballance: I am still in state of shock watching his innings. One of the best t20 innings if not the best I have seen this year. When I saw him in the last two games his stance and footwork looked exactly like a Alistair cook impersonation. Make no mistake this guy is a proven run machine across the other two formats. It was the last person I expected to play such a knock.
Before this innings his career t20 strike rate was 103. 45 minutes later it jumped to 111. He hardly was beaten or had a dot ball. Though his technique resembled Cook against Mountaineers (I think he got run out) and the table bottom rocks today he came out to be spitting image of Jos Buttler (who is one of my fav t20 players) in terms of improvisation.
In contrast with the other two games in the middle order he had little to lose when asked to get 110 of the last 10 overs. He was definitely going for broke and that was evident from his first few shots.
Little did we know he could go back and across before the delivery was bowled so he can be in position to launch it over midwicket even though his task was made easier by being served up full tosses on a regular basis or did we know that he could paddle sweep medium pacers to fine leg for four. Admittedly (post match interview) he has been practising hard.
The first paddle sweep was buttleresque. The second was simply outrageous because it was well outside off stump and he still scooped it for four. The very next ball he tried the reverse scoop and it did not come off. The funny thing was Tom smith repeated the same length over four deliveries.
This is why I should stop making calls on class players. Because I know it will come back sooner than later to bite me in the a**.
Today he showed that he has so much class and that he can act (test) , sing (odi) and dance (t20) by adapting his game.
During the interview he look like he was determined to make it to a higher level although I have low to medium expectations of him playing for Zimbabwe. If we do get him Zim will have 2 batsmen and a bowler that the opposition will be afraid of.
Dabengwa: Keeps going from bad to worse as the tournament progresses.
NCube: Underbowled. Lack of trust from cap Horton. Should have bowled the 19th instead of Querl or Gayle earlier. I was curious to see how he would have performed under real pressure.
Gayle: Overbowled. I think Chris is a very generous man whether he is batting or bowling. He served up so many full tosses to help out the local charity, I thought he was having a net session rather than a a real game.
Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
It is no secret that I have always thought Taylor should open in all three formats.
Neil Johnson, Alistair Campbell, Murray Goodwin, Andy Flower (w), Grant Flower, Dave Houghton, Guy Whittall, Heath Streak (c), Andy Blignaut, Ray Price, Eddo Brandes
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Flower power
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Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
Lanka cricket being a useful source of Zim content .....Keep it up
Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
Local talant defintley showing in this match, Roy Khia, Sumbura, Kasuza all showing that they have talant
Re: [Series thread] 2011 Stanbic Bank T20
Is Taibu still injured??