the final countdown do do do dum dum dum

The Sheffield pura Shield cup final is fast approaching.

Well not fast, its approaching about a day at a time.

I will need to find myself a couch that sits in front of a foxtel TV in order to see any of it.

The thought that Victoria, a proud and beautiful state, could lose to NSWales, a vicious pack of heathens, sickens me.

Victoria, gentleman that they are, have decided to use the players that have been available all year.

NSWales, vile scum that they are, have selected a bunch of ring ins.

I suggest they leave them out, last time I saw Lee And Clark bowl for their state they looked ordinary.

But they have nothing on our Bryce.

There is some contention over whom shall be picked, out of Quiney and Mash.

Even though I think Quiney is the better batsmen, Mash can dig himself into the crease and hold on, where Quiney is more likely to play the flashy innings.

But we have a middle order full of people who can play the flashy innings. Also the few times I have seen Quiney play spinners, it has never been that impressive to me.

With the bowlers according to the dailies the last place is out of Dirty Dirk and Clinton Mckay.

Sure I am biased by the fact Dirty Dirk is involved, but he is the logical choice out of these two.

Clinton has a very good recent record, looks in decent form, and is taking wickets.

Dirty Dirk is an angry growling warrior who would stab you in the eye with a pen to get your wicket.

For a Final I know who’d I prefer.

I’ve looked over NSWales side quickly and I have seen some problems for them.

Their bowlers have not taken a lot of wickets for them this year, and a few of their batsmen haven’t made many runs for them either.

There are some new names in there, Clark, Clarke, Bracken and Lee to name a few, but they only sound impressive if you say them out loud.

I suggest you don’t do that.

Instead I suggest you artificially find some reason to think we can win, like Bryce is a better bloke than Stuey, or Brett Lee will disrupt the team with his constant singing in Hindi.

for a home final

Victoria find themselves in a battle against NSWales for the home ground advantage in the pura Sheffield cup Shield final.

Sides just don’t win shield finals away from home.

So the Vics have to beat the NSWelsh at their home ground starting Friday.

The NSWales team is missing a few regulars, Bracken and Haddin have been big time players all year, Smith and Hughes are off playing for the Australian under 19 side.

This week we need some old school, darren berry/slug jordan style cricket this week.

I can't stand losing to this mob at the best of times, but i'll be damned if we lose to this cobbled together team and lose the final because of it.

I think Crosthwaite should come in to provide some Luke Ronchi style catching and his witty little sledges to ensure victory.

If we lose this game, we probably don’t deserve to win the shield final, but our team, while still injury interrupted, still looks stronger than the speedblitz blues.

Victoria has a chance to write their names into the record books, being the first team to win two championships that no one cares about and one that everyone does in the one year.

They have been, by far the best 2020 team and 4 day team all year. Their one day form is pretty ordinary, but somehow they have found themselves in a position to play in or even host the final.

I had a coach once who said this “you remember two things in sport, when you win, and when you should have won”.

Victoria we expect nothing less than a total annihilation of this depleted Nsw side, but we understand you will collapse one or twice just to keep us interested.

And congrats to the young pakistani kid Usman Khawaja, who has been picked for NSWales, i understand he probably will be 12th man, but if he plays i hope he fails, no offence kid, but this is war.

drunken big bash report

This match report is soaked in beer.

Myself and my friends drank at a 2020 pace.

Big Daddy, a not so frequent collaborator on cricket with balls woke me with a spew this morning, that’s the sort of pace we set last night.

The game was pretty ordinary.

Another G pitch that no one could score runs on.

Which for 2020 sort of negates the idea of the game.

Blizzard and Hodge looked pretty good early on.

But when talking about batting you really can’t look much further than David Hussey. How he scored 70 off 40 on that pitch is beyond me.

He hit some very large blows, and looked particularly angry against the slower bowlers.

I still maintained my perfect record of never seeing him make a tonne.

Just to prove how good David Hussey is the NSWelsh came out and batted horribly.

I still don’t know how they got that close to winning.

The crowd was great, it was great to see a Victorian cricket match with fans there.

Never thought I’d see the day.

I'd like to thank Cricket With Balls Own Nice Bryce McGain for getting a wicket first ball as a birthday present.

What a great guy.

vics vs nsw day three (tea)

Updates, Hugh Trumble café and gift shop both air conditioned, and its appreciated.

In the gift shop the state stops are a 110 bucks a pop. What a disgrace. Australian tops are a 100. The state tops must be made better.

This session is the Bryce McGain show, he is the only bowler who look likes getting a wicket. And I’m not just saying nice things about him because he is old and he may die soon.

He dropped Forrest off his own bowling. But Forrest was so confused by the incident he thought the only gentlemanly thing to do was to run himself out.

Then he pegged Katich down, before getting him out for his first real failure of the year.

He dried up the runs and probed like an alien, while nameless faceless fast bowlers toiled at the other end.

Perhaps Hodge is more imaginative than I thought (I doubt it). With Dirty Dick bowling to Thornely, he had a short leg, leg gully and short mid wicket. All this while Dirty Dick bowled into Thornely’s arm pit.

Dirty Dirk gets so angry when anyone scores off him, its quite amusing.

Someone needs to check the water supply to the Nsw changeroom, it may have lithium in it. They have lost 3 wickets (one to a run out) and they are batting like they want a draw not a win. Quite odd.

The pitch is still a small pr1ck to bat on, but its not as bad as it was on the first two days. You can play your shots on it, not that NSW have tried that radical tactic.

Oh Greg Mail is still in, he has blazed to 95 not out.

Quiney, bottle blondes and a pompous fast bowler

These are my disjointed notes on the one dayer between vics and blues.

I got to the ground just after the wild man Dirk Nannes (say it out loud now) finished his spell and 3 New South Welshman.

Shane Harwood came up with a new variation on the Tony Greig theory of straight and full in one day games. He decided to keep the straight, but forget about full and just bounces the batsmen with two men out. Slowed Haddin down, next over he went out forcing a ball that wasn’t there.

Brett Lee was sent out as a pinch hitter. Not every intimidating when a batsman walks out with an arm guard though is it. He then made 11 off 14 before Thornley scorched him. Probably all for the best though, because Moises Henriques came out next.

The kid looks nothing like a cricketer. But he sure acts like one. He could be the complete opposite of Shane Watson. He made 11 off 5 balls, and he made them so damn easy you wonder why they even bothered giving Lee an arm guard and sending him out there. His bowling wasn’t brilliant, but it was fresh and certainly more potent than Thornely’s.

Future PM (next election) took a blinder at long on after miss reading the ball and then plucking it one handed. He then ran in from long on and did a weird rock the baby dance.

Being that I am a MCG member, I sit next to the players area. Which means I get to see all the players girls, families and such. It’s good for a couple of reasons, one because you get to see the players off the field. And where there are fit and talented men there are bottle blondes, which are good to look at. Oh and also Bryce McGain’s mum, who seems like a nice lady.

Is it wrong I sometimes hope Klinger goes out? I’m sure he is a nice guy, and he is talented, but he just aint fun to watch.

Nsw definitely think Hussey doesn’t like it short and fast, I spoke to Sime on the way home and he said on the telly they were saying similar. He actually seemed to handle it ok I thought, and it certainly didn’t get him out.

Hussey has the best wrist work of any Australian I’ve ever seen. Nope scratch that, I remember this chick once, she was a magician.

Quiney is an interesting dude to watch bat. He looks like a club cricketer, he seems to over balance a lot, and he plays these weird guiding shots all the time. Then its like a switch is flicked and he just turns it on. He still bats like a club cricketer mind you, at no stage does his technique look perfect, but who cares, and the boy hits a mean ball.

Just as Quiney and Hussey got their funk on, Katich brought on the power play. Not earlier when the small and diminutive Klinger was batting. Twas odd. It lost them the game, as Quiney and Hussey smashed Brett Lee and Stuart Clark everywhere. Not even Lee’s pompous did I tell you I’m the leader of Australia’s attack slow the Vics down.

In the massacre Hussey charged and then backed away as Lee followed him with a bouncer that he sliced away for four. Don’t try it at home kiddies.

Michael Clarke sat in the dug out, with a tracksuit on, even though it was hot, maybe he has the mumps too. This didn’t stop him giving advice to Katich all game. Auditioning for Punters job are we?

As Nsw lost the game I tried to come up with a traffic pun about them being the Speed blitz blues. Then I realised something, the name is funny enough on its own.

Victoria made light work of an attack with Bracken, Lee, Clark and Hauritz in it.

Quiney especially, the man was brutal, I haven’t seen a non Hussey/Elliott/Jones/Hodge guy dominate for Victoria against a good attack like that. He was unbelievable, he really did treat the bowlers like they were club grade and he needed to get home and feed his cat.

Should I get excited?

Memo to MCG, the sightscreen at the city end makes a weird high pitched screeching noise when moved. Is there anything we can do about it, I know it won’t be a problem during internationals, you know the games with the crowd and such.

Special mention to Dirk Nannes (say it) who tried to imitate Quentin Lynch, the west coast eagle forward by charging at a ball so hard he forgot to use his hands and chested it away instead. Nice work Dirk.