Ashes prediction

Oh as an aside - I meant to briefly make an Ashes prediction...

I was on The Baggy Green reading Ian's thoughts on the Aussie preparation for the upcoming Ashes series. Ian was pointing out how Phil Hughes is walking all over the English county sides scoring runs left, right and centre...

... personal opinion was that Hughes would probably have gotten a better working over playing against the Aussie womens A side or one of the local under 13 teams rather than in county cricket but that's my own thoughts...

Anyway my prediction is that - provided rain doesn't play a role - Australia wins all of the test matches without really raising a sweat.

The only thing that might way on the Aussies is the lack of a decent spinner just to plug up an end. Having said that, maybe Krezja will be handier in pommie conditions rather than on harder SA and Australian pitches...

... if he doesn't work they could probably give Bryce Mcgain and Mick Lewis another callup just to try and balance things out a bit!

Anyway - here are the dates for the five test matches for those who are interested:

Ashes 2009 Test Series
1st Test: Wednesday 8 July – Sunday 12 July (Cardiff)
2nd Test: Thursday 16 July – Monday 20 July (Lords)
3rd Test: Thursday 30 July – Monday 3 August (Edgbaston)
4th Test: Friday 7 August – Tuesday 11 August (Headingley)
5th Test: Thursday 20 August – Monday 24 August (The Oval)

Aaaaahhhh man...

The Delhi Daredevils finally got one over the Deccan Chargers and we had to give up our undefeated record in the IPL...

Pity - we were going like a house on fire!

Unfortunately it would appear that if neither Gibbs nor Gilchrist gets going then there is some frailty in the Deccan Chargers batting line-up and if it hadn't been for some decent hitting from Dwayne Smith it would have been even worse.

A little disappointed that Scott Styris didn't get a run but I guess the obvious question - why tamper with a winning formula.

The IPL is definately capturing people's imaginations at the moment here in South Africa and it's amazing to skim through Facebook to see how many people have planned their long weekend around the IPL games.

Yeah yeah yeah!

Can you say Deccan Chargers baby!!!!

Gibbs and Gilchrist are loving this format of the game and they're just on top of their game -it's great to watch....

We racked up another hard fought win over the Chennai Super Kings today.... A good weekend of cricket for us.

How cool has it been to watch Shane Warne playing!? The standing (if a little uncultured) joke in South Africa is that Warney likes this T20 lark because the two guys who knew how to play him - Hansie Cronje and Jonty Rhodes - one is dead and one has retired...

Moving swiftly along...

Have to put the boot in again as well here... Freddie Flintoff and KP are the two most expensive players in this years IPL if my stats are correct... and they've contributed how much in runs and wickets?!

Not sure either of these guys classify as the top cricketers in the ODI format of the game... but that's just personal opinion and I appreciate that there is more a "celeb" factor when one looks at KP as opposed to cricketing skills.

To be honest

I have to say that despite my reservations about T20 cricket I've actually spent more time following the IPL this year than last year.

Heck I've even got a favourite team (The Deccan Chargers)!

Looking at the crowds as well, its probably been a good boost for SA cricket and tourism so that should have some economic spin-offs as well ...

... and best of all the cricket has been classy!

The Mumbai Indians and the Deccan Chargers are the top two teams in the competition at the moment and they haven't gotten there with crazy slogging cricket.

Gilchrist, Gibbs and Tendulkar have put on some seriously classy batting displays and while its not really a bowlers format of cricket, there have been some good spells as well.

Phil Hughes and county cricket

I wasn't planning to mention an Australian cricketer for the next few months if I could help it, but I was reading Ian's post on The Baggy Green about Phil Hughes and it suddenly got me thinking - "Where the hell was this guy for the ODI series?!"

In all honesty, with Ponting, Clarke and Mike Hussey looking dead on their feet I would have thought that giving Hughes a run with the ODI squad would have been good for him - even if you were planning to mould him as a Test batter.

Apparently Hughes has been cleaning up on the local scene scoring a few runs and has now taken a six-week stint with Middlesex .... errrrr ok.

County Cricket
A few years back it was regarded as beneficial for cricketers to move over to the UK for the English season and get a couple of seasons and a few pound in their pockets.

These days, I'm not totally sure what the point of county cricket is - there is so much international cricket on the go, that the real pros don't really need to go and play a bit of village cricket to get some experience.

The standard of county cricket appears to have deteriorated faster than the standard of English cricket (when one strips out the South African contribution to the team).

Dunno - anyone else think that county cricket isn't all that big a deal?

My pick...

I forgot to post my pick for the IPL - this year it was easy - Adam Gilchrist opening with Herschelle Gibbs - no questions The Deccan Chargers are my team...

Then you have Andrew Symonds and Scot Styris there as all rounders - not too shabby mate!

Darren Lehman as a coach also not too bad...

And so it ends....

... A great summer of cricket finally came to an end with the Australians winning the last game under lights at the Wanderers.

Ian over at The Baggy Green has done a summary of all their results and you just think back to some of the amazing memories that have been created in the last few 5 months and you realise how amazing this series really has been.

• Mitchell Johnson week in and week out have been phenomenal
• Ben Laughlin's heroics on the boundary last night won him plenty of SA fans
• Dale Steyn, JP Duminy and Makhaya Ntini brilliantly saving the second test match
• AB Devilliers winning the first test match for us with his innings
• Bryce Mcgain being carted all over Potch and then getting a chance to do it all over again in the third test match

So many great memories.... I was in one of the boxes at the Wanderers last night and at one point we actually stopped watching the cricket and we just scanned around the ground following the mexican wave and the South African flags and fans in full song.... it was the most amazing live cricketing sight I've seen first-hand...

... To the Aussies and the South African players who have given their all over the last few months I take my hat off to you.... you guys treated us to something we will probably have to wait a long time to see again!

To the fans - you made these guys great and you showed a brilliant respect for the performance - there was no sour grapes when the Aussies put one over us and vice-versa - just a great appreciation of good cricket.

And finally to the umpires - We tip our hats to you for allowing the series to progress so smoothly. We probably won't remember the umpires and their contribution to a great series but for every one who stood in any of our games - THANK YOU - your silent contributions to a phenomenal series is appreciated.