Tag: Sixers

‘Sambulance Rescue’ Act

An account of today’s BBL10 ‘Knockout’ between Thunder and Heat and a few comments about issues relating the tournament that were in the spotlight today.

This post is devoted to today’s #BBL10 ‘Knockout’ game between Thunder who finished third in the group and Heat, who finished fourth and then beat Strikers in the ‘Eliminator’.

THUNDER’S POOR TACTICS

Thunder got away to a slow start, only managing 22-1 in their four overs of Power Play. The seventh and eighth overs of their innings were both big ones, yielding 13 and 14 respectively. Khawaja fell in the ninth to make it 62-2. At the end of the tenth Thunder were 68-2, and in need of a big second half to their innings. The second half started slow, and the dismissal of Ferguson made it 74-3 at the start of the 12th. It was 78-3 at the end of 12th, and then 11 came off the 13th over to make it 89-3. At this point the Power Surge should certainly have been claimed in a bid to maintain the momentum, but Thunder did not do so, and a wicket fell in the 15th, with the Power Surge still unclaimed. At the three-quarter way stage Thunder were 107-4, and overs 11-15 had yield 39-2, respectable, but not enough after the slow beginning. Thunder still refused to claim the Power Surge, and by the 18th they were 134-6, and now had to use the Surge for their last two overs. They had a nightmare start to this final phase, losing wickets off the first two balls. The rest of it went OK and they finished with 158-8, nine runs less than the Scorchers had spectacularly failed to defend at the same ground yesterday. The Power Surge overs had yielded 24-2, but they would probably have managed that many from overs 19 and 20 even without them being the Surge overs, so basically because they were scared to take the Power Surge early they did not benefit from it at all.

A SLOW START FOR HEAT

Heat lost two wickets, including the man with the best twitter ‘meme team’ in the business backing him, Joe Denly. 10 off the fourth over saw them end the Power Play at 25-2, three runs ahead but one wicket behind Thunder. Overs 5-10 were slow going as well for the Heat, and that the half way stage they were 56-2, needing 103 off their last 10 overs for the win. They were building towards a good moment to take the Power Surge when Labuschagne was run out for 30 to make it 70-3 after 12 overs, 89 needed off eight overs to win. Sam Heazlett who had come in at the fall of the second wicket and was already going well was joined by Jimmy Peirson, setting the stage for…

THE ‘SAMBULANCE RESCUE’

After 14 overs Heazlett reached 50, having taken 37 balls to get there, with Peirson going nicely as well, and the score was 96-3, 63 needed off six. The 15th over went for 15, taking the score to 111-3, four runs and 1 wicket ahead of Thunder at the same stage, and now Heat managed something that had proved beyond Thunder: taking the Power Surge at a sensible time (I would have gone an over earlier, if not two, but at least they did take it with Heazlett and Peirson both still there). Heat took 26 off their two Power Surge overs without losing a wicket (only two runs more than Thunder, but two fewer wickets lost, and crucially a net gain of approximately ten runs compared to two non-surge overs at the same stage of the innings), and with three overs to go they were 137-3, needing 22 off 18 and now heavy favourites. Ten more runs of the 18th reduced the ask to 12 off 12 balls, and the match was practically unloseable. The 19th over nearly finished it, but the final ball of it, with scores level, was a dot, leaving Heazlett on strike for the start of the 20th, to complete the ‘Sambulance rescue’. The first ball of the 20th was put away for four by Heazlett – no deliberate wides this time! Heazlett had scored 74 not out of 49 balls, and his supporting act Peirson had 43 not out off 24 balls. Their match turning and ultimately match winning stand had produced 92 runs in 7.1 overs. Heat face Scorchers on Thursday, with the winners to take on Sixers in Saturday’s final, and given yesterday’s events I will be rooting for the Heat, who if only for their better handling of the Power Surge thoroughly deserved their win.

ISSUES OF BBL10

This game showcased several issues relating to the tournament as a whole:

  • X-factor subs: Heat were able to effectively get in an allocation of five overs – Bartlett bowled one over, a maiden that should have been a wicket maiden, in the first ten and was then replaced by ‘x-factor sub’ Morkel, who bowled his full four overs. The fact that the decision can only be made precisely at 10 overs into the first innings heavily favours the side who field first – they can replace a bowler either as Heat did with another bowler, or with a batter if they feel the need for extra batting depth, while the batting side can only justifiable opt to strengthen their batting, for example if they lose early wickets. I personally think this innovation needs to be abandoned completely, and certainly it cannot continue in its current form.
  • Umpiring: for some unknown reason DRS has not been used in this tournament, and some of the umpiring has been very poor. There were at least three, and possibly four poor decisions today: In the Thunder innings three LBWs were turned down, and all looked absolutely stone dead (I commented about the first of them that had it happened in a match with DRS and been given out not even Shane Watson would have bothered to review it), while the run out of Labuschagne may have been harsh, as the keeper may have dislodged the bails with his gloves before the ball was in his hands. DRS and the usage of all camera angles is a must for #BBL11, and some of the umpires need to smarten up their act or find a new job.
  • Catching: the standard of catching in this tournament has been woeful, and another cartload of chances went begging today. Guys, when a ball is hit in the air towards you, you are supposed to catch the damn thing.
  • Power Surge: I dealt with this in the main body of the piece, and also covered it yesterday, but today was a perfect case study. Simon Mann, who was part of today’s commentary team, labours under the bizarre delusion that the final two overs of the innings are the best in which to take it. Today blew that one sky high – Thunder did precisely that and effectively gained nothing from having the Power Surge, while Heat timed the taking of the Power Surge well, if not quite perfectly, and used it to move from being in a close fight to being in cruise control, a position they never subsequently relinquished.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Scorchers Shamed

An account of today’s BBL ‘Qualifier’ between Sixers and Scorchers, including a disgraceful incident involving AJ Tye, and thoughts about the Power Surge.

The title of this post, devoted to today’s #BBL10 qualifier is dual purpose, relating both the Scorcher’s overall performance today and to the incident that ended the match.

SIXERS SLAM SCORCHERS

Scorchers batted first and started slowly, Roy falling in the third over for a nine ball three. They finished their Power Play overs strongly, taking 25 off the last 11 balls to be 30-1 after four overs. The second phase of their innings was solid, overs 5-10 inclusive yielding 44-1, to give a halfway score of 74-2, with two well set batters, one the very dangerous Colin Munro, together at the crease. It was a situation that demanded an early use of the Power Surge to launch the second half of the innings, but Scorchers did not take the opportunity, and they paid for their voluntary surrender of the initiative lest the Surge cause a fall of wickets, as the third quarter of their innings was an unqualified disaster, yielding them 24-2 to reach the three-quarter way stage at 98-4. At that point they did take the Power Surge (leaving it any later would have been truly appalling). They made superb use of those two overs, scoring 34 off them, a gain of at least 20 on what they would have scored from those overs in ordinary play. They then kept the momentum going to finish their 20 overs with 167-6, a defensible looking total. Their top scorer was Josh Inglis, a wicketkeeper, who as Yorkshire-born Aussie may potentially follow in the footsteps of Hanson Carter, the best Aussie keeper between Jim Kelly and Bertie Oldfield, who was also born in Yorkshire.

Sixers started brightly, taking 13 off the first over of the reply, and being 43-0 at the end of the Power Play, 13 runs and one wicket to the good. They lost Philippe late in the first half of their innings, but still had a superb overs 5-10, scoring 61-1 in that period, 17 more than Scorchers had managed, in what had been a good period for them. I would have thought an early Power Surge was called for, but Sixers did not go for it. By the the end of the 15th Scorchers were 151-1 and the only question was whether James Vince, by then on 89, would reach a ton before the end. Although Daniel Hughes hit a boundary to level the scores with Vince on 98, he then avoided scoring off any of the last three balls of that over. The 18th over began with the scores level, setting the stage for…

AJ TYE’S ABJECT ASSAULT ON THE SPIRIT OF CRICKET

Tye, an experienced and successful bowler, bowled to Vince with the scores level and Vince 98 not out. He produced what was blatantly obviously a deliberate wide, a mean and petty ‘dog in the manger’ type gesture that denied Vince any chance to complete a century that would have been thoroughly merited. I have umpired a few games at a low level, and temporarily donning my umpire’s hat, I would have been tempted to tell Tye loudly that I was not going to oblige him by calling a wide and that he better bowl the next one straight. I certainly think the Scorchers should drop Tye for their next game, which will be against the winners of the match between Thunder and Heat, and the winners of that will take on Sixers in the final. I will certainly be rooting against the Scorchers when the time comes. Is my dim view of this just because the offender is an Aussie? No, and I offer as evidence to back up my own criticisms the fact that one Richard Thomas Ponting, not normally known for Aussie bashing, is on my side as well. Very little in cricket is new, given the game’s long history, and there was an incident in a long ago ODI when David Gower, called up to bowl by way of a concession of defeat, again with a batter, this time Greg Chappell, on 98, bowled a deliberate no-ball. Gower’s behaviour then was marginally less inexcusable than Tye’s today because he was a non-bowler and one can understand him not being impressed by being made to act as a sacrificial offering.

THE POWER SURGE

I have stated my thoughts on the taking of the Power Surge before, but I am going to extend on them here. Firstly, I am more and more convinced that one should have a good reason for not going early, rather than allowing caution to dictate. Scorchers paid for their failure to go when in a perfect position to do so, and it was only Sixers utter dominance that enabled them to get away with delaying their own surge. The extra point about the runs from the surge overs is that is not just a question of how many do you get from them, it also a question of how many would you have scored anyway from those overs even without the surge, and that is where leaving it late is a definite loser – you will be throwing the bat at pretty much everything in the closing stages of a T20 innings anyway, so would be scoring faster than at other stages of the innings. Scorcher’s surge was worth about +20 to them compared to two ordinary overs at that stage, because they did make it count when they finally took it. Had those two overs been, to take the extreme, the last two of the innings, then they would have been maybe +10 had they scored the same 34. However, had Scorchers gone in overs 11-12, when they had two top batters together, including the potentially devastating Munro, those same 34 runs would have had them 108-2 with eight overs to go and a total of 180 a definite goal, with more a distinct possibility. As it was, timing it when they did, even that huge surge only brought a total of 170 on to the horizon, and in the end they were just short of that. Here as a reminder is a Power Surge inforgraphic I created earlier:

PHOTOGRAPHS

My parents are in King’s Lynn because my aunt is undergoing a medical procedure and needs to be kept company for 24 hours. They arrived yesterday, and we had a chat over my back garden fence, and I took delivery of a glass vessel which bears my name, and is now the only one of what was a pair, due to a recent accident, and it dominates today’s photo gallery…

  • The front of the glass vessel
  • The back of the glass vessel.
  • Finding a niche for it…
  • …In my ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’.

The Group Stage of #BBL10: A Retrospective

A look at the 56th and last group game of #BBL10, an analysis of the qualification system, a look at the innovations in this year’s BBL and some photographs.

The graphic which heads this post is the final group table of BBL10, screenshotted from cricinfo.com. In this post I look back at the 56th and final group game, analyse the qualifying system in place for this tournament and offer final views on the three innovations. I would like to say at this point, in case the rest of this post gives a wrong impression, that I have enjoyed the tournament, and my criticisms are offered in a constructive spirit.

STARS STUFF UP SEES THEM CRASH OUT OF BBL10

With Heat beating Scorchers to secure a qualifying place and Renegades final act of the tournament being to eliminate the Hurricanes the 56th and last group game, commentary of which was broadcast on five live sports extra presented a stark situation to the two combatants: Stars needed the full four points (three for the win and one for the Bash Boost) to qualify (with a sensible qualifying system they would already have been gone – more on this later). Sixers meanwhile needed the Bash Boost point at minimum to win the group, and a victory of any sort to do so outright rather than on net run rate.

With Stars needing all the points they had to get big runs in the first ten overs of their innings, but they failed to pick up this message. Nick Larkin, a known slow starter, was sent in at number three, and in this case provided the expected slow start and then failed to go on (11 off 16 balls). Then, at the end of the tenth, setting the Bash Boost target, Nic Maddinson came back for a second on the penultimate ball rather than leaving the big hitting Maxwell on strike. Two more accrued of the last ball of the tenth, leaving Stars on 72-3, and a modest target for the Sixers to claim the all-important first point of the game, which would ensure no Melbourne participation in the final stages (Renegades’ win had not altered their final position – last).

Overs 11-15, which included the Power Surge being taken for overs 14 and 15 were the best part of Stars’ day, as they scored 52-1 in that period to reach 125-4 at the three-quarter mark. They lost a little momentum in the closing stages, but three sixes in the final over boosted them to 177-6, a respectable total, though not very relevant as their poor handling of the first ten had likely cost them any chance of qualifying.

Faced with the situation they were in Stars should have front loaded their batting with all their biggest hitters, realising that their 20 over score would only be truly relevant if they went big in the first ten. Nick Larkin as a known slow starter should probably not have been picked for this match at all.

Sixers lost a couple of early wickets, but by the end of their four over power play were 43-2, 11 runs ahead of Stars at the same stage. They also outscored Stars in the second phase of the innings, albeit only by two runs, being 85-3 at the halfway point, and having already won the war, securing their own status as group winners and the elimination of the Stars, although a Pyrrhic victory in the final battle remained on for the Stars.

Overs 10-15 did not go especially well for the Sixers, who reached the three-quarter way stage at 126-5, 1 run ahead, but one wicket behind the Stars. They picked things up in the final quarter however, and in the end a boundary struck by Dan Christian of the penultimate ball of the match ensured that Stars would not even have a Pyrrhic victory to finish. Sixers deservedly topped the group, and I for one have no sympathy for the Stars, who made a complete mull of their approach to this game, and who in the words of Anne Robinson “Leave with NOTHING.”

A FLAWED
QUALIFICATION SYSTEM

Although it lent a few of the final group games an interest they might not otherwise have had, a qualification system that allows five teams out of eight to progress to the knockout stages has to be considered flawed. Firstly, in order to reward each qualifying team according to their placement the knockout phase is byzantine in the extreme. Secondly, it means that average teams are being rewarded – the teams in the 4th and 5th qualifying spots each recorded seven wins and seven losses, which does not deserve to be enough to progress. Tournaments that are organized on part league part cup lines should reward only teams who are exceptionally successful in the league phase – and losing as many games as you win is not exceptionally successful on any definition. My own preferred method for an eight team tournament would be as follows: three teams qualify for the final stages, the group winners going straight through to the final, while the second and third place teams play off for the right to join them, with the second placed team having home advantage by way of reward for doing better than the third placed team. This would make the tournament more compact by reducing the number of knockout matches, although they also need to have more days on which multiple matches are played in the group stages, and would ensure that only teams who are clearly better than the rest get to play in the knockout matches.

THE THREE INNOVATIONS

BBL10 featured three innovations this year: the Power Surge, reducing the opening Power Play from six overs to four, with a two over Power Surge to be claimed by the batting team at any point after 10 overs, the Bash Boost point, awarded to the team with the better score at the halfway stage, and the ‘x-factor’ sub where specifically at the halfway stage of the first innings each team may swap out one player for one of their designated ‘x-factor’ subs. I am a huge fan of the Power Surge, though a number of teams have misused it, being wary of going early and ending up without front line batters to cash in on it, and would like to see it adopted in other T20 competitions. The Bash Boost point has overall been a success, although a combination of the importance it assumed today, and Stars’ flawed approach caused it to spoil this particular game somewhat, and again albeit under a different name, it might well be worth other T20 competitions adopting it. The ‘x-factor’ sub rule belongs in the circular file, and has in my view contributed nothing to the tournament. If you need to alter the balance of your side after the start of the game, the one valid reason for using such a sub, you should have got it right first time.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off:

BBL10 UPDATE

A look at recent BBL developments, a nickname suggestion and some photographs.

This post looks back at the three BBL games on which the TMS team have provided live commentaries since my last blog post, and also attempts to give impetus to a nickname I have coined.

RENEGADES V THUNDER

The Renegades went into this match in bad position in the tournament and were unlucky to finish it in an even worse one. They batted first, and there was a rain interruption 12 overs into their innings which lasted long enough to reduce the game to 17 overs per side. They took the two over Power Surge immediately on the resumption, to relaunch their innings, an excellent decision IMO, and one that worked well for them. They finished with 167 from their 17 overs, which the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern system (DLS) turned into a target for the Thunder of 173, with the readjusted Bash Boost point target 65 off eight overs. The Thunder had reached 117-2 from 12 overs, helped by a fine knock from Alex Hales, when the rain returned, terminally this time. Thunder were ahead of the official DLS par score and took the points. My own reckoning is that 56 off five overs, even with eight wickets still standing, would have been tough for the Thunder to pull off. Renegades played again today (no commentary), and were soundly thrashed by the Scorchers as the latter continue their attempt at a Lazarus act.

SIXERS V HEAT

The Sixers were going well in the tournament, while the Heat were struggling somewhat. The Sixers had a good first ten overs, scoring 85 from them. It was in overs 11-15 that they let thing slip, being 123-6 after 15. A mini-revival got them to 165 from their 20. The Heat fared well in response, but lost wickets at awkward times. However, a respectable and well timed Power Surge got them back into the contest. At the start of the 17th over of the chase, bowled by Carlos Brathwaite the contest looked even, with maybe the Heat slight favourites, although they did not have a lot of batting in reserve should wickets fall. By the end of that over, which included three wides, and went for a lot of runs the Heat were cruising, and they took a mere four further deliveries to finish the job, Lewis Gregory finishing with 31 not out from 16 balls. The Heat were good value for the win. How would the Sixers respond to such lese majeste?…

SIXERS V STRIKERS

This was today’s commentary game on TMS. The Strikers started slowly and were 58-2 at the end of the tenth. The Power Surge did little to improve their situation, and it was only a late flourish in the last couple of overs of their innings that got them to the respectability of 150. They would have to bowl well to defend such a total. Jonathan Wells made 66 for the Strikers.

Unfortunately, with one exception, they did not bowl well. Rashid Khan bagged three wickets with his leg spin, but at that point Vince, already showing signs of going well, was joined by Jordan Silk.

One of the many subjects I read about is astronomy/cosmology, and anyone who has read remotely seriously about this kind of stuff would have come across Joseph Silk, a top astrophysicist. In quest of bringing some more imaginative nicknames back into the game, I link two J Silks together by dubbing Jordan Silk “Astrophysicist”, which could be shortened to “Astro”, linking to the the novels of Aussie writer Matthew Reilly.

Rashid Khan was given his fourth over early, the 14th of the innings to be precise, but by then the Sixers could afford to play him out without trying anything risky, and he finished with 3-18 from his allocation, a good deed in the naughty world of Strikers’ bowling figures.

Sixers then took the Power Surge, and those two overs plus another two were sufficient to see the Sixers to a seven wicket win, Vince 45 not out, “Astrophysicist”/ “Astro” 38 not out (he is also a fine boundary fielder, and has saved Sixers plenty of runs in that capacity during the tournament).

The Sixers, after their hiccup against the Heat, seem back on track and destined to be involved in the final stages of the tournament. The Strikers meanwhile look like a team in a lot of trouble. With the possible exception of the last two overs of the Strikers innings the Sixers won every phase of today’s game, and were far more dominant in it than the Heat had been against the Sixers, for all that Heat actually had a couple more balls in hand when they completed victory in that game.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…