BBL Weekly: The national recall edition

Five games into BBL05 and there’s been plenty of action in the 200-odd overs of cricket played. Want to sound like a T20 connoisseur? Read on.

Since Thursday night’s Sydney Smash, there’s been 1631 runs hit, 62 wickets taken, 1171 balls bowled, and two performances that should result in national recalls.

Here’s how things stand on the league ladder.

There’s not a lot to read into it at this stage, given the Scorchers are yet to play a game and most of the competition have only played one game, but don’t let that stop you from getting excited, Thunder Nation!

League table

Flipping the script
How ‘bout them Thunder!

A 2-0 start, against the far more fancied Sydney Sixers and Melbourne Stars, is easily the best way the western Sydney boys have begun a season since the BBL’s inception.

As predicted, a large part of the Thunder’s success has been thanks to their very good, very deep fast-bowling stocks, with the team defending the two lowest first innings scores made so far this season (158 in Game 1, and 177 from Game 2).

There was a fair dose of luck and poor batting in Game 1 against the Sixers, but in last night’s thriller it was as much about making the big moments count as, well, just being a better team.

If it weren’t for Kevin Pietersen’s 76 from 42 balls – 25 of those runs coming in his final seven deliveries – this one would have been all over at the halfway point of the second innings. Where the rest of the competition has gone with two tweakers, the Thunder have gone all in on crafty pace bowlers, with Gurindher Sandhu and Clint McKay particularly stellar exponents of slow variations. Shane Watson is bowling like a 25-year-old, while Jacques Kallis, well, he’s bowling.

The Thunder’s next assignment isn’t until next Monday, when they face the volatile Adelaide Strikers on their home deck. They could still be on top of the ladder at that stage – something which even the bravest of pundits wouldn’t have predicted.

What of last night’s losers, the Melbourne Stars? The pre-tournament favourites sit at 0-2, and in a very tough spot even at these early stages of the tournament.

Their first-up loss to the Adelaide Strikers was on account of a loose bowling performance in the second half of the first innings, as well as some ambitious strokeplay from Adelaide’s Alex Ross. Last night’s loss was a little more troubling though, in that the much-vaunted batting line-up failed from top to bottom (excluding Pietersen, and Marcus Stoinis, who was done in by a combination of Andre Russell’s hand cannon and some neuraliser-worthy LBW judgement from the men in black).

Melbourne have a week off to ponder their next move. With a very strong line up on paper, where do they go from here?

Khawaja’s in, but what about Lyon?
If there were any doubts that Usman Khawaja would re-take his position in the Australian Test team from Shaun Marsh on Boxing Day, they were made to look even more foolish on Sunday evening.

Khawaja opened for the Sydney Thunder, and put on a clinic as he scored the tournament’s first century for the year.

It wasn’t even the number of runs he scored – in a game that is often criticised for slogs and cross bats, Khawaja rarely mishit the ball. He played all around the ground, including a couple of ramp shots towards the back end of his innings, and sewed up his return to the pinnacle of cricket.

But there could be another national selection story brewing at this early stage of the tournament: Nathan Lyon.

No, not in the Test team, but in either or both of the ODI and Twenty20sides.

The reluctance to play Lyon, who is quite obviously the country’s best spinner in the international reckoning, appears mostly to do with the national team’s desire to have batting all through the line-up.

Well, two games into the BBL and it’s clear Lyon’s power to vary his deliveries with bounce and flight is not limited to the red ball. He was arguably the Sixers’ best bowler in both games he played, even though his figures make for better reading in the second outing (5-23 off 3.5 overs) compared to his first (1-28 off 4).

Bat him at 11 and watch him hold up an end in either format – make it happen selectors.

The old guard have still got it
If T20 cricket is supposed to be the young man’s game, someone forgot to tell three of Australian cricket’s old stagers.

It started with Mike Hussey, who went all classical in his 80* from 59 balls on opening night. Coming in at number three, Hussey looked like a man who’d been playing for months – but nope, it was his first competitive game of cricket for many months. They call him Mr Cricket, but a more appropriate name would be Mr Natural.

Then on Friday night it was Brad Hodge’s turn, as he saved his Strikers with a cool, calm and collected 56 from 41 after coming to the crease at a precarious 3-38 in the sixth over. His initial partner, Travis Head, lasted a few overs more as the Stars’ Adam Zampa and John Hastings put the squeeze on. After making it through this tough period, he played anchor to the chain chomp that was Alex Ross’ ridiculous 65 from 31. Crucially for Hodge, more than half of his runs came in ones and twos.

Capping off the old fogey trifecta was Brad Haddin on Sunday, who played a well-paced, powerful innings of 72 from 54 deliveries. He also won man of the match, in what could be described as controversial circumstances. It was Haddin at his white-ball best, slapping fast bowlers with a paddle-straight bat down the ground and blasting elegant drives through cover-point.

And we’re yet to see the grandest daddy of them all, the Scorchers’ George Bradley Hogg, who suits up tonight at the tender age of 44. You know, the World T20 is only a few months away…

Still would’ve reviewed it

S.R. Watson

LBW: Glenn Maxwell

One from two balls.

Source: Cricket.com.au

Renegades batting depth comes into play
Coming into the tournament, the question mark lingering over the Melbourne Renegades was their bowling line up, which looked remarkably thin. That theory was put to the test and proven, if not equivocally, on Saturday night, as the Brisbane Heat put up 180, with a top score of 35 from Chris Lynn.

But as shallow as they look in defence, they are deep with the willow in hand.

Led by a sparkling 65 from Aaron Finch, who was well supported by discarded star Cam White’s 55, the Renegades batting line-up reeled in the ton 80 with relative ease. The run rate never dipped below seven, and accelerated around the halfway mark, as Chris Gayle (sporting a gold bat and a triple-digit jersey), Matthew Wade and Dwayne Bravo combined for 56 runs from 31 balls.

Substituting a three overs, no maidens, 1 for 47 from Guy Walker for four overs, no maidens, 1 for 30 Peter Siddle may make this team a threatening proposition.

Brad Haddin was man of the match
The Sydney Sixers eviscerated the Hobart Hurricanes on Sunday, piling on 186 runs before bowling their opponents out for just 91. It was one of the biggest victories in the BBL, and a very unusual result – it’s not often a team bats so well relative to their opponent.

As above, Brad Haddin showed he’s still very good at cricket in hitting a powerful 72 from 45 balls. His former Australian counterpart, Nathan Lyon, took 5-23 from his 3.5 overs (taking the last wicket of the match). According to some, Lyon was more deserving of the man of the match award, because he’s a bowler and he took five wickets, whereas Haddin is a batsman and he hit a measly 72 runs.

That argument ignores the role each participant played in victory: Haddin batted for the first 12 overs, scoring 72 of his team’s 115 runs to that point, as those around him struggled with a very good Hobart Hurricanes bowling attack. If he hadn’t played his innings in the manner he did, the platform for a final six-over assault, which got the Sixers to a very strong total, wouldn’t have existed.

Meanwhile, Lyon took four of his five wickets by virtue of batsman error.

So yes, five-fors don’t happen very often, and Lyon looked very good with the white ball in hand. But that’s why it is recorded in the scorebook as a ‘five-for’. Haddin’s role in the match was far more influential on the outcome.

Tonight’s game: Strikers at Scorchers
The Perth Scorchers finally take the field in BBL05 tonight, but do so without a couple of their more important everyday players, as Jason Behrendorff and Sam Whiteman are out with back and finger injuries, respectively. The reigning champs will be at near-full strength otherwise, with their four current Test representatives Nathan Coulter-Nile, Shaun Marsh, Mitch Marsh and Adam Voges suiting up for what could be the only time in the tournament.

The line out of the WACA is that Behrendorff is missing this one mostly due to the availability of the internationals – with their inclusion allowing him to rest a little longer than required. We’ll see.

The Strikers, on the other hand, come into town having knocked off the Stars at home in their opening game, and so will be full of confidence. Adelaide got over the Scorchers in their BBL04 match in Perth, with that man Hodge all-but guiding his team to victory.

Will Perth’s defence be as strong without the Dorff killing off any chances of scores during the power-play overs? That looms as the critical question in this one.

I’m not game enough to back against a team that includes the Marsh brothers (who are very good at cricket, people), Adam Voges and Nathan Coulter-Nile; and Adelaide’s line-up is vulnerable to early collapse, as we saw on Friday night. So I’ll back the Scorchers.

Enjoy the week of cricket, and that other thing that happens this time of year. Christmas, or something.