Batting meltdown but Redbacks beat Tigers & gain place on international T20 stage

South Australia have won a place in the T20 Champions League and the right to host the Big Bash final. .

They did so by beating Tasmania 131 (18 ov) to 9/108 (20 ov) in a low scoring match, one in which their batting after a promising start collapsed losing 6/4 (that's 6 wickets for 4 runs) precipitated by a hat trick (nos 6,7 & 8) by Rana Naved-ul-Hasan.

Fortunately the Redbacks bowlers once again rose to the challenge: Shaun Tait took wickets from the first two balls of the Tasmanian innings and Aaron O'Brien, Dan Christian and Shahid Afridi maintained sufficient pressure to keep the Tigers well and truly caged, even they didn't undergo a Redbacks type meltdown.

Now there's one more minor round game to play in the Big Bash comp followed by the final at home then, whatever happens from now on, off to India. T20 may not be my preferred form of the game (though I did go to the 91 run trouncing of Victoria last week ) but you can be sure I'll be, like many other South Australians, barracking for the Redbacks as they take those next steps.

Sheffield Shield final winds up domestic season

I've been watching the final of the Sheffield Shield. Victoria dominated throughout, secured a reasonable first innings total (510 is barely par for these 5 day attritional contests) then bowled Queensland out for 200. Disappointed as the Bulls would have been this was at least an improvement on their 506 run first innings deficit against Victoria a week before.

Both sides went through the motions of a second innings but the game, which the Bulls needed to win to knock the Bushrangers off their unbeaten perch, fizzled out. Perhaps Martin Love , the last man standing of the side which first won the shield for Queensland , thought otherwise, though his apparel (inc at least two shirts, sunhat and cap, as the photo above shows) gave the Fox Sports commentators something to talk about in the slow passages.

Victoria deserved to win, even though the Bulls had three key players (Ashley Noffke, Ryan Harris and Chris Swan) unavailable because of injury. The Bushrangers' talent pool was deep enough to cover international call ups to Andrew McDonald and Bryce McGain: they were able to omit a recent England Test player .

Scorecard

During the telecast Fox Sports interleafed some archival footage, including some of the last time South Australia won the Shield by hanging on for a draw against Western Australia, who were on top throughout. I was there and remember the tension building as the last few South Australians hung on grimly as the April light faded. (Interesting to note that only Mike Hussey of the 22 players in that match is still playing).

Away from the action

I'm in London visiting family at the moment and so am not in close touch with the Australian cricket scene.

I have however read on Cricinfo that South Australia began its first class season earlier this week with a drubbing at the hands of Victoria. Just like last year.

The scorecard suggests that neither SA's batting or, more surprisingly, its bowling are of a standard likely to push other teams hard in the Pura Cup four day competition.

Bill Johnston

Bill Johnston, Australian left-arm bowler of the 1940s and early 1950s, has died. He retired before my serious cricket watching time, so I don't recall seeing him play. While he didn't have the reputation of some of his contemporaries for either his on - or off-field exploits, his record attests to both his ability and his reluctance to promote himself.

Mike Coward in The Australian and, as you'd expect, Gideon Haigh on Cricinfo have produced good appreciations of the man. He deserves be better known. How many other players were as versatile with the ball (beginning with quick stuff and later, if necessary, bowling finger spin) as him? Garfield Sobers yes, but others? True, his batting wasn't too flash, but he did finish the 1953 tour of England with a batting average of 102, and he and his Richmond club teammate Doug Ring once won a test against the West Indies by adding 38 for the last wicket.