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The Matador BBQs (son of Ryobi, son of Ford Ranger, son of ING, son of Mercantile Mutual, son of FAI, son of McDonalds, son of Gillette) Cup is over for another year. How did your team fare?
Played in Sydney to give the New South Wales team as many advantages as possible, the tournament featured everything that is good about domestic one-day cricket. Sparse crowds. Barbecues as man of the match awards. North Sydney Oval. Half-hearted television coverage. Free sausages for sixes that hit randomly placed targets.
What more can you ask for?
NSW ‘RTA Speed Blitz’ Australians
Slogan: ‘What’s Your Plan B?’
With the tour to Bangladesh postponed, the World Cup-winning Australian team decided to instead enter this competition. As is traditional, they donned the sky-blue of New South Wales and proceeded to stomp like a herd of unruly cricketing mastodons through the tournament.
After early games in which they gorged themselves silly on bonus points, the Australian team began to lose interest in the competition, resting players, forgetting to win a game against Victoria, making Moises Henriques captain, and so on.
Still managed to comfortably win the final, though.
Best player: Mitchell Starc, who took 26 wickets for the tournament at the unfair average of 8.11. Sadly, saved his worst performance for the final, where he took only three wickets. Major choke from the tall quick, who’ll have to go home to the little fort he’s built in his backyard out of man of the match barbecues and reflect on his big-match temperament.
South Australia Southern Redbacks
Slogan: ‘Don’t turn a night out, drinking with spiders, into a nightmare.’
The surprise packet of the tournament, in that you often assume they were kicked out around the same time that the Canberra Comets were, South Australia chased down 350 in their first game. They stumbled a little thereafter, dropping games against NSW and Tasmania, before winning three in a row to make the final.
Best player: Alex Ross, who led the run chase against Queensland and provided the backbone of the Redbacks innings in the elimination final. Not to mention that he’s also one of the world’s most sought-after superhero comic book artists. Where does he find the time?
Victoria Bushrangers
Slogan: ‘We’re sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank, who, like the other sponsors, also disapprove of excessive drinking. Nevertheless, we are raising interest rates (see our website for more details).’
Following the Australian lead in the Ashes, Victoria chose to not select Peter Siddle in this tournament. They also suspended Glenn Maxwell for a game for not showing up to a recovery session, before dropping Cameron White for the elimination final. The Bushrangers clearly embracing the philosophy of jazz legend and big-hitting lower order batsman Miles Davis: “It’s not the cricketers you play, it’s the cricketers you don’t play.”
Best player: Matthew Wade, who continued his excellent batting form from the ODI series against England, and keeps alive the dream that Australia will select an all-wicketkeeper squad for the first Test against New Zealand.
Tasmania ‘Thylacine’ Tigers
Slogan: ‘James Faulkner is in our team.’
Tasmania were a team in this tournament, that’s for sure.
Best player: George Bailey. Well, he wasn’t the best, but he smiled the most. And that’s still got to count for something.
Western Australia Warriors
Slogan: ‘Alcohol. Think Again’
The Warriors scored 350 in their very first innings of the tournament, with Cameron Bancroft scoring 176 and Shaun Marsh 109 as they combined for a 216-run opening partnership.
Things went rapidly downhill from that point, as they failed to defend that total, before going on to win only the gimme game against the Cricket Australia XI and a dead rubber against Queensland.
Still, helluva start.
Best player: Joel Paris, always an eyeful, towers above his teammates here, taking 10 wickets in the tournament at an average of 22.4, an economy rate of 4.86, and a pun factor of 81.4per cent.
Queensland ‘My FootDr’ Bulls
Slogan: ‘If you drink and diagnose feet, you’re a bloody idiot.’
The Queensland Bulls showed up to this tournament with all the enthusiasm you’d expect from bovines entering a competition centred around matadors and the open cooking of beef.
They won two games, lost four, and then headed back home to reminisce about the NRL grand final, and share tall tales of how those high-falutin’ southern folk call their foot doctors ‘podiatrists’. Think they’re so fancy.
Best player: Johnathan Thurston, who despite having his match-winning conversion attempt hit the post, kept his composure to kick the winning field goal two minutes into extra time.
Cricket Australia ‘CAXI’ XI
Slogan: ‘Had a big night out? Take a CAXI Maxi Taxi home.’
The Cricket Australia XI was a team of up-and-coming youngsters, plucked from obscurity to compete in this tournament. This ragtag team of misfits and underdogs won our hearts by being bowled out for 59 and 79 in their first two games, before bouncing back to defeat Tasmania by three runs in their third.
An inspirational tale of triumph over adversity, soon to be a major Hollywood motion picture, starring Michael Cera as Marcus Harris and Elizabeth Hurley as ‘Swepson’s Mom’.
Best player: Hilton Cartwright, who was run out for 99 off 96 balls in CAXI’s unsuccessful run chase against Queensland. He will be played by Shia LaBeouf.