Zimbabwe tonk Australia

A stunning Zimbabwe performance last night turned the cricketing world on its head when they beat Australia by five wickets in the Twenty20 world cup.

Australia won the toss and chose to bat, but began the innings with a display that Ricky Ponting later admitted was ‘diabolical’ as three wickets fell in the first four overs. Ponting and Gilchrist both tried to attack the Zimbabwean bowling but ended up top-edging balls, leaving Oz in trouble on 19-3.

Symonds and Hussey steadied the ship briefly before Mr Cricket himself was run out by some superb fielding, and with half the overs gone Australia had only registered 51 runs. When Symonds was stumped by Brendan Taylor – one of three of the keeper’s scalps in the Oz innings – Australia must have realised that they were in a proper pickle. Brad Hodge managed to salvage something from the afternoon, scoring 35 not out and shepherding the tail to help the side reach an almost respectable 138-9.

Zimbabwe were consistently tight with their bolwing and fielding and whatever happened in their innings could be proud to have restricted Australia to a modest total and come within a whisker of bowling them out.

Zimbabwe made a good start in reply, reaching 31 before the first wicket fell, and despite some fine bowling from Australia never quite lost sight of their target. A break for rain looked like it spelled doom for Zimbabwe as Lewis-Duckworth calculations put them several runs behind the required rate, the Oz bowlers having put some needed pressure on the batsmen.

However, when they came out after the break at 74-4 Zimbabwe’s batsmen looked more settled and determined, and Brendan Taylor’s batting held the side together. Entering the final over with 12 runs to win, Zimbabwe were handed victory on the penultimate ball as Bracken clipped Taylor’s pad for 4 leg byes.

Zimbabwe were ecstatic, and Brendan Taylor – the Man of the Match – gave as emotional an interview as I have ever seen after a match. The charmingly named Prosper Utseya must take credit for captaining an efficient side to a historic victory.

After the match Ponting ruefully admitted that perhaps Australia had not taken the Twenty20 format seriously, but his teams attitude and lack of preparation should not take away from the professional and accomplished performance of Zimbabwe.

My condiments to the wicket-keeper

Mere hours after I tipped Phil Mustard to be a contender for bigger things, Hampshire captain and future citizen of Germany Shane Warne has jumped on the bandwagon and tipped the Colonel to star for England. Predictably, he likened him to Adam Gilchrist, which must be something of a burden for a wicket-keeper, much in the same way that every England cricketer who showed the merest hint of being able to bat as well as bowl in the last two decades ran the risk of being labelled The New Ian Botham.

While it would be wonderful to uncover a English Gilchrist or Sangakkara, if there isn’t one in the counties then the selectors need to accept another kind of keeper. One option is to simply select the best gloveman, which would be an acceptable strategy if England had sufficient batting from it’s lower orders (a future line-up including Flintoff, Broad and Rashid might allow just such a strategy). Another option would be a keeper who can defend with the bat, rather than attack. Ian Bell didn’t have a good series against India, perhaps because he knew that as soon as Prior came in he was in a race against time to get some runs in before the lower orders got themselves out.

A keeper who could at least block out the bowlers would let the last batsman play his natural game, and be a useful nightwatchman too. England would benefit from a dull but dependable keeper who could reliably score 20 or so runs in an innings, rather than insisting on a run machine who may well not be out there.