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Jason Krejza still sees himself as Australia’s No.1 spinner and desperately wants a spot on the upcoming tour of South Africa after leading Tasmania past NSW in their domestic Twenty20 match in Sydney.
Man-of-the-match Krejza smashed an unbeaten 33 from 24 balls in the Tigers’ total of 7-194 and then claimed 3-23 with the ball as the visitors earned a 28-run victory over the Blues at ANZ Stadium on Monday.
Nathan Hauritz replaced Krejza as Australia’s frontline spinner during the recent 2-1 Test series defeat to South Africa and has been endorsed as the team’s spin option of the future by captain Ricky Ponting.
But Krejza, who has played two Tests for Australia and was dumped after the first Test in Perth against the Proteas, has other ideas.
“I definitely want to be on that tour,” he said.
“I want to be the first spinner, I still see myself as that in my eyes.
“I just want to keep pushing and keep that positive mentality I’ve had over the last couple of months.
“Hopefully things will work out.”
Many felt Krejza was made a scapegoat after the first Test defeat at the WACA with the off-spinner taking 12 wickets in his only other appearance in the baggy green against India late last year.
He was given direct instructions from selectors to “tighten up” his bowling and his return from four overs in the tough Twenty20 environment shows he has taken the directions on board.
“(I was told) just to tighten it up,” he said.
“It was tough over there in WA and this is a great form of the game to work on that, just to change my pace a lot and try to work on line and length.
“It’s working quite well at the moment.”
Needing a win to stay alive in the tournament, the Tigers were sent in by returning Blues captain Simon Katich and took full advantage of a fairly benign wicket.
An enormous total seemed likely when Tasmania raced to 1-139 from 12 overs, with Rhett Lockyear (51 off 29 balls), Michael Dighton (43 off 29) and Travis Birt (44 off 17) all punishing the NSW attack.
But the Blues fought back, taking 6-30 at one stage to limit the Tigers to less than 200.
Doug Bollinger (2-32), Mark Cameron (2-45) and Aaron Bird (2-40) all took two wickets for NSW.
Moises Henriques (42 off 25 balls), replacing David Warner at the top of the order, put on 40 for the first wicket with Katich as they tried to chase 195 for victory.
But the Blues lost regular wickets and were never really in the hunt.
It was a costly loss for NSW, who could have put themselves in place for a finals berth, but now find themselves in a logjam of four teams just behind leaders Victoria with one game remaining.
“It would’ve been really handy to come away with two points here tonight,” Henriques said.
“I think they just got 20 or 30 runs too many for us and 195 was always going to be tough to chase on this kind of wicket where the spinners bowled quite well.”
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