Group stages done. Time for the quarter-finals. Australia met Pakistan at the Adelaide Oval in their first knockout game. Here are the ratings for that match.
Palindromes
Grade: B+
Look, it’s a well known fact that Australia’s turnaround in cricketing form in recent years coincided with their selection of a pace bowling attack that had palindromic nicknames. Mitch ‘Mo o’doom’ Johnson. Peter ‘Yo, Banana Boy!’ Siddle. Ryan ‘Sir R ‘arris’ Harris.
Entering this must-win game, the selectors pulled a similar ploy, with Mo o’doom joined by Josh ‘Oh, so Josho’ Hazlewood and Mitch ‘Starc?! Rats!’ Starc. Disappointing for Pat Cummins, who would have probably made the final XI had he been able to get a properly reversible nickname going. Still, we should be thankful for his efforts in the group stages to help get Australia to the finals. Ta, Pat.
Not included in the palindromic requirement is all-rounder James Faulkner. He compensated in the pre-match countdown by reciting his three in a manner that suggested he knew far more about the number than the rest of us do. (Fun fact: to prevent confusion, players record the countdown by counting up and then ICC boffins edit it into the desired order.)
Brad Haddin
Grade: C
Never one to miss out on a chance to insert himself into the game, wicketkeeper Brad Haddin entertained fans with some of his classic routines from the past.
Making a triumphant return was his ‘sustain an injury while celebrating a wicket’ bit. Last time, Faulkner poked him in the eye. This time, it was a brief foot injury. It was unclear whether or not Faulkner was to blame again, but let’s assume he was, for consistency’s sake.
Additionally, Haddin also knocked the bails off while Umar Akmal was batting, eliciting an excited hit-wicket appeal from the rest of the Australian team, who hadn’t seen precisely what had happened. The appeal was denied on replay, as was any possible stumping, due to the batsman being in his crease and also hitting the ball for four. I’m so going to miss Brad Haddin whenever he retires/is dropped/decomposes into dust before our very eyes.
Zing bails
Grade: D
Xavier Doherty wasn’t selected for this match, which meant the strangest moment of the game came when a Josh Hazlewood delivery hit the stumps causing the zing bails to flash without actually dislodging them.
Weight seemed to be the issue, with many pundits claiming that the zing bails are heavier than normal bails and hence more difficult to dislodge. Surely, if the weight of zing bails is a problem, the ICC should simply reschedule all future games to a planet (e.g. Mars or Tatooine) where the gravity is lower. Common sense, guys.
Even with Earth’s absurd extra gravity, Hazlewood still took 4/35 off his 10 overs earning him a man of the match award. That’s oh, so Josho.
Mitchell Starc’s sledging
Grade: D
Leading the attack for Australia this entire World Cup has been Mitchell Starc, whose body language, intent, aggression and ability to stick out his chest has been sensational.
Less importantly if you’re Shane Warne, his actual bowling has been brilliant too.
Getting perhaps a bit carried away, Starc decided to sledge some of the Pakistan lower order as Australia looked to wrap up the tail cheaply. He went with the old classic of advising the play-and-missing batsman to hit the small round white thing.
Really stupid of Starc to reveal the colour and shape of the ball like that. Why let Pakistan back into the game like that with such a useful piece of data?
Wahab vs Watson
Grade: A+
Australia had been set a small target of 213 to chase, and Wahab Riaz did his very best to single-handedly prevent them from getting there. He bowled with venom and fire and that small, white round thing that Starc had blabbered about earlier in the match.
Dave Warner and Michael Clarke fell to Wahab’s hostility, bringing Shane Watson to the crease. The veteran all-rounder was batting without a review to waste, which must have felt to him much like batting without a box. Wahab seemed to sense this advantage and unleashed a brutal barrage of bouncers against Watson, eliciting major envy among hundred of thousands of Australian cricket fans.
Eventually, Watson somehow saw off the Wahab spell with only a dozen or two wicket-taking chances missed and guided Australia to a semi-final showdown against India. Shane Watson, truly a big-match player. In that he is big and plays matches.
A+ effort.
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The Aussie needed every centimetre of his height and reach to reel that one in!
