Good Areas, Work Hard, Keep It Simple
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Indalia 1st Test wrap up
Ok so new season and I think we should finally get moving. I've changed it to one of the generic designs just for kicks. I'll think of a prettiful one later. Anyway, the cricket!
The first Test has just concluded and ignoring all the interesting battles that have gone on in the previous 5 days, I'd like to look at the last detail of the match. The Man of the Match award.
I'm much too lazy to look but I don't think there is any sort of defining rule on awarding the MotM. There are two methods behind it, awarding it to the greatest individual performance or awarding it to the player that was most influential in the victory.
In most other sports, the MotM, or it's equivalents, is awarded according to the second method. In something like footy or soccer, it's easier because individual flashes of brilliance last only a brief period of time, whereas contributing for the full allotted time is much more important. However cricket is an interestingly retarded sport. It's an individual sport wrapped in a team game.
So Zaheer Khan was given the shiny trophy, I assume it was a trophy I didn't actually see it, after the first Test. For what though? A quick perusal shows he took 6 for 137, a fair effort considering the pitch and the opposition. Look a bit deeper and you see 2 of those wickets were Lee and Johnson, solid tail-enders but tail-enders all the same, and Hussey going for quick runs. Ok, so his half century was important. Can't take anything away from that even if you tried. So perahps a reasonable choice. Not my pick though.
Other candidates would have been Ponting for his first innings century, but apart from slaying some demons there wasn't a great deal to it. Hussey's century driving home the advantage and his little innings to stop a collapse in the second innings, good performances but not really momentum grabbing.
My pick? Sharma Sharma Sharma Chameleon! Match figures of 7 for 117, including the scalps of Kathead, Ponting, Watson, White, Clarke and Haddin, the last 3 all done in by great slower balls and clever thinking. If anything, the award should have been shared between Ibrasharm and Zaheer, because it was only when they were bowling in tandem did India look like running away with it.
Oh and the Victorian in me says Cameron White deserved the award just for debuting as a specialist number 8.
The first Test has just concluded and ignoring all the interesting battles that have gone on in the previous 5 days, I'd like to look at the last detail of the match. The Man of the Match award.
I'm much too lazy to look but I don't think there is any sort of defining rule on awarding the MotM. There are two methods behind it, awarding it to the greatest individual performance or awarding it to the player that was most influential in the victory.
In most other sports, the MotM, or it's equivalents, is awarded according to the second method. In something like footy or soccer, it's easier because individual flashes of brilliance last only a brief period of time, whereas contributing for the full allotted time is much more important. However cricket is an interestingly retarded sport. It's an individual sport wrapped in a team game.
So Zaheer Khan was given the shiny trophy, I assume it was a trophy I didn't actually see it, after the first Test. For what though? A quick perusal shows he took 6 for 137, a fair effort considering the pitch and the opposition. Look a bit deeper and you see 2 of those wickets were Lee and Johnson, solid tail-enders but tail-enders all the same, and Hussey going for quick runs. Ok, so his half century was important. Can't take anything away from that even if you tried. So perahps a reasonable choice. Not my pick though.
Other candidates would have been Ponting for his first innings century, but apart from slaying some demons there wasn't a great deal to it. Hussey's century driving home the advantage and his little innings to stop a collapse in the second innings, good performances but not really momentum grabbing.
My pick? Sharma Sharma Sharma Chameleon! Match figures of 7 for 117, including the scalps of Kathead, Ponting, Watson, White, Clarke and Haddin, the last 3 all done in by great slower balls and clever thinking. If anything, the award should have been shared between Ibrasharm and Zaheer, because it was only when they were bowling in tandem did India look like running away with it.
Oh and the Victorian in me says Cameron White deserved the award just for debuting as a specialist number 8.
Labels: australia, cameron white, india, ishant sharma, michael hussey, ricky ponting, zaheer khan
posted by banh # 11:26 PM 
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