Abu Dhabi T10 League Update

 

5 games have been played over the last 2 days with 4 different victors. The team to have prevailed twice over that time was Northern Warriors who had lost their first three games on the bounce. The scale of their turnaround is underlined by a huge victory today against Chennai. After setting 141, they limited Chennai to 107 and won by 34 runs – a huge gulf by T10 standards.

The Deccan Gladiators are our new leaders with 3 wins from four and can thank the form of Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Nicholas Pooran for that. Pooran’s run scoring has slowed but has still got 41 runs over the last two games. As Pooran waned, TKC has waxed and stolen his team mates highest score when he bagged 82* off Delhi yesterday.

Karim Janat is another player who has had a good few days as he has excelled with both bat and ball. His stand out performance came today with the ball as he got figures of 3-9 for Samp Army against New York. The new overall highest bowler is his team mate, Dwaine Pretorius.

 

 

 

Logan Cup Update

 By some distance, the Logan Cup is my favourite domestic long form competition (other than the County Championship).

 

The pick of the two matches this weekend saw Mid West Rhinos triumph over the Mountaineers which saw some hard fought battles between both sides. For the Mountaineers their best batter was Tony Munyonga who got 66 in the first dig and 88 in the second. He was up against the premier bowler in the first round – the Mid West Rhinos’ Tafara Chingwara who got 8 wickets across both innings, including 5-78 in the first innings. It was the bowler who would have been the happier player by the end of it as his team emerged as the winners – rifling the Mountaineers out 25 runs short of the target.

 

In the other game, Mashonaland got the better of the Southern Rocks who were in with a chance on the final day but ended up 101 runs shy.

 

The next round of matches starts on Thursday. 

Abu Dhabi T10 Leage Update

 

Insanely we are 11 games into this tournament.

 

Results and team performances hardly matter but feel it is my duty to inform you that Samp Army are 2 for 2 whilst the Northern Warriors are winless.

Today saw one of the more thrilling games as New York got their second win of the season in a final ball thriller over Deccan. New York needed 6 runs off the final over but made a bit of a meal of it and ended up level on scores with a final ball remaining. They eventually pipped over the line with 8 wickets to spare.

 

Nicholas Pooran couldn’t buy a run in the T20 World Cup but is well in the runs here for Deccan. He has the two highest scores in the tournament and is 71 runs clear of anyone else.

 

Chennai’s Carlos Brathwaite is doing his best to keep bowlers in the headlines. His outstanding figures of 4-3 are quite obviously the best of the tournament and rather put the lead wicket taker, New York and Yorkshire’s Jordan Thompson’s 5 from 3 games with a BBI of 2-11 rather in the shade. 

ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2 Round Update

 The latest round of this competition….which I assume has no end….has been played out between host Namibia, Papua New Guinea and the United States.

The USA were the strongest team on paper and so it came to pass as they won 3 games whilst Namibia won 2. Papua New Guinea leave Namibia winless.

 

The tone was set early on when Namibia humiliated Papua New Guinea by getting them all out for 107 and knocking off the total in 15.1 overs. The 209 balls remaining in the game is the second most from the 114 (!!!) that have been played in this tournament.

The only notable achievement for Papua New guinea in this leg was a score of 94 from Asad Vala that represents the 35^th highest score in the competition and the second highest by a PNG player. He is only bettered by….himself when he got 104 vs Namibia in September 2019 (!!!) That score takes him to 4^th place on the run-scoring table. 149 from America’s Monak Patel sees him take the lead for highest run scorer with 1219 from his 35 games.

 

In other news, Tangeni Lungameni got the tournaments second 6fer in Namibia’s win against (you guess it) Papua New Guinea. The highest active wicket taker overall was America’s Saurabh Netravalkar who got 4 wickets to take his haul to 58. He has scome way to go to overhaul Oman’s Bilal Khan with 76.

 

Matches continue in Namibia from Thursday when Scotland and Nepal will faced the hosts.

 

 

WBBL Round Up

 At the North Sydney Oval on Saturday, the Adelaide Strikers defeated the Sydney Sixers by a score of 10 to win the WBBL championship.

 

As Adelaide concluded their innings at 147-5, Deandra Dottin scored an undefeated 52 runs off 37 deliveries, including two sixes and two fours in her final three overs.

 

Sydney's innings began 15 minutes later than scheduled because they wanted to prevent player visibility difficulties. After six overs, they were 16-4.

 

Adelaide, who was in the final for the third time in three years, won the WBBL championship for the first time in the league's history after the Sixers were eventually expelled for 137.

 

Neither Laura Wolvaardt nor Ellyse Perry could usurp Beth Mooney as top run scorer. Mooney has now scored the most runs in back-to-back WBBL’s.

Megan Chutt eneded the tournament with 27 wickets, including 13 in the last 4 games to claim her maiden WBBL medal.

 

WBBL Mini Round Up

 

Adelaide showed that convoluted knock out systems are not all they are cracked up to be as the second placed franchise beat the third placed franchise (Brisbane) to join the first placed franchise (Sydney Sixers) in the final.

 

It was the bowling of the Adelaide unit that saw them prevail, sharing 8 wickets amongst 5 bowlers. Megan Schutt’s 3-26 was the most impressive haul as they limited Brisbane to 154. It wasn’t always plain sailing for Adelaide as they dropped behind the asking rate in the death overs but a last-minute sprint to the line got them there with three balls remaining. It has been a good spell for Schutt. She finished the (interminable) round robin stage with the tournament’s best bowling figures of 6-19 in their 26-run win over Sydney Thunder. Schutt is likely to end the tournament as top wicket taker. She has 3 more wickets than her nearest active rival, Sydney Sixer’s Ashleigh Gardner.

 

Beth Mooney ended her tournament with four very contrasting performances for Perth. After 99 & 75 she then scored 3 against Melbourne Stars and a duck against Melbourne Renegades. Despite this sharp about face she still leads the run scoring; however, Laura Wolvaardt needs 46 runs in the final on Saturday to overtake her. It is not just in Wolvaardt that that Adelaide have a batting dynamo as they also possess Tahlia McGrath who finished the main stage of the tournament with 93*vs Hobart.

 

The final is at 6.20AM on Saturday morning.

Abu Dhabi T10 Update

 The sixth season of the Abu Dhabi T10 begins on Wednesday at the Zayed Cricket Stadium kicked off with Bangla beating new team New York courtesy of 58 from 22 from competition veteran Evin Lewis. Bangla got to 131 and New York could only manage 112 in response.

 

In the second game, Deccan had the beating of Abu Dhabi who fell to a 35 run defeat in their season opener. The Abu Dhabi franchise’s batting looked in stark contrast to Deccan whose captain, Nicholas Pooran, led from the front with a 33 ball 77 to take their total to 134. Abu Dhabi started well but lost too many wickets to prove effective.

 

With the addition of New York and Morrisville, the number of teams has increased to eight for this year's event.

 

There will be 33 games scheduled in Abu Dhabi over the next 12 days, with each side playing the other once. The top two teams will compete in a qualifier, and the victor will advance to the final on December 4 on Sunday. In a virtual semifinal, the winner of the game between the teams in third and fourth position and the loser of the Qualifier will choose who advances to the final.

Sri Lanakan Major League Tournament Update

 Another red ball domestic final brought to an ignominious end by the first innings lead rule.

 

After Tamil Union put on an absurd 558 in their first innings, Colombo exceeded that with 669 to win the trophy. Sadeera Samawickrama will feel aggrieved to have scored 231 runs in two innings (188 & 43) and still end up on the losing side. He did however propel himself up to third place on the run scoring table.

 

The best players of the tournament ended up being Ragama’s Nishan Madushka who got 138 runs more than anybody else in the tournament despite playing 2 fewer games whilst Sinhalese's Prabath Jayasuriya pipped Sri Lanka Army's Kamal Nanayakkara to be highest wicket taker with 67 wickets @ 20.85.

 

Notable moments in the competition were Nishan Maduskha’s score of 300 for Ragama against Sebastianites in August whilst old favourite Malinda Pushpakumara registered the tournament’s highest of 8-27 for Colombo against Lankan at the start of September. 

WBBL Round Up

 

For so so so long the WBBL has been quite stagnant on a lot of fronts – however it has been all change over the last week or so.

 

Perth’s Beth Mooney  has knocked Georgia Redmayne off the top of the run scoring log courtesy of a mammoth haul of 165 runs in 48 hours. Another record that was toppled this week was the highest individual score of the tournament, with Alyssa Healy breaking the three figure mark with her 64 ball 107* in Sydney Sixers game against Perth – the same game where Mooney scored 75 runs herself.

 

On the same day as that batter friendly game in Melbourne, Sasha Mohoney got 4-15 in the Melbourne derby. This represents the 4^th best bowling figures of the tournament to date. Overall Brisbane’s Nicola Hancock has bagged 11wickets in her last 4 games to supplant Jess Jonassen – who has slipped down to third place.

 

It is also worth noting that Melbourne Renegades have continued their absolutely abysmal season with a complete drubbing on Saturday. They were all out for 88 chasing 192-4. Another dark moment in their poor season – one of the worst I can remember in franchise cricket. 

Ahmad Shah Abdali 4-Day Final Write Up

 Andrew Strauss are you watching?!

 

The final of the Ahmed Shah Abdali 4-Day Trophy turned into a turgid event after Amo, the lesser favoured team were invited to bat first and then went about gaining runs at a slow pace to gain the first innings lead that they needed to win the title. In the end, 395 did not seem a mammoth total but it was enough when they got BEAR – who had been so impressive in the league stages – out for just 278. Mohammad Shahzad was the man of the match for scoring 113 and 101 before having to retire hurt.

 

The tournament’s best player Karim Janat did not go out on a bang. After 6 successive 50+ scores he scored a mere 15 this time out but chipped in with 4 wickets. He still finishes with 164 more runs than anyone else in the tournament. Amir Hamza, the tournament’s stand out bowler got a further 6 wickets in the final and ends on 30 @ 12.46. Despite these two players being Band-e-Amir representatives, it was their team that ended up with the silver medals today. 

WBBL Mini Round Up

 

Yet again, I have been provoked into doing a WBBL update by a huge victory.

Melbourne Renegades got their second victory out of 8 last time out and may have thought their season might have turned…however this was quickly put paid to by the fact that they were all out for 80 against 5^th placed Hobart today. This was largely courtesy of a Molly Strano 4-16 haul. It took Hobart just 10.4 overs to haul in that minimal total.

 

Overall, Jess Jonassen keeps bagging three-fers for fun and leads the way in the wickets column with 17 at an average of 14.31 whilst Georgia Redmayne continues to be the tournament’s highest run scorer with 305.

One thing that has changed is the highest individual score of the season as Beth Mooney got 99* off 58 balls in a shock Peth victory over league leaders Sydney Sixers.

 

Unbelievably there are still 21 more fixtures left before we get to the knock outs. 

Zimbabwe's Pro 50 Tournament Round Up

 Today was the final of this competition. The last time we touched base on it – and in that time, through a confluence of events, Mid West Rhinos, who were second to bottom, managed to rise to the top of the table. They found themselves thrust into the final against the Mountaineers today. 70 from Mountaineers’ Definate Mawadzi took them to 277-7. In reply, the Rhinos looked in real bother at 209-7 but took it down to needing just 12 runs in the last over and 2 off the final ball – however they fell short with a dot off that last ball.

The two excellent players of the tournament were Tadiwanashe Marumani and Brandon Mavuta. Marumani got 428 runs for Mashonaland at an average of 47.55. Interestingly Mashonaland boasted 6 of the top 10 overall highest individual scores in the tournament despite the fact they ended up losing the same amount of games they won. Their season is characterised by the fact that the tournament’s highest individual score was 155* by Mashonaland’s Chiamu Chibhabha…in a game that they went on to lose.

 

Mid West's Brandon Mavuta led the way from the off in terms of wickets and ended with 28 @ 13.39 – 10 more than anyone else. His tournament best figures of 7-41 against Mashonaland a fortnight ago did no harm to these impressive numbers.

 

Domestically, eyes will now turn to the Logan Cup which starts on the 22^nd.

 

Ahmad Shah Abdali 4-Day Tournament

 The final of this tournament plays starts in Sunday – and Band-e-Amir are clear favourites having won all 4 of their games. They are up against an Amo side that won 2 and lost the other 2 – however they have proven that they can win big.

Both of Amo’s victories were 2 of the largest victories of the tournament.; a 226 run win against Speen Ghar and an innings and 132 run win against Mis Ainak. They also boast the bowler with the best figures in an innings in the form of Shafiqullah Ghafari who got the tournament’s only 7fer.

As you can imagine for a team as successful as BEAR have been they have both the highest run scorer and the bowler with the most wickets. Karim Janat has 546 run at 182 and Amir Hamza has 24 wickets at 10.66. They will play big parts in the showpiece final.

The stand out achievement from the non-qualified teams comes from Speen Ghar’s Bahir Shah who got the tournament’s highest individual score of 182 against Mis Ainak.

Boost had a largely anonymous season and only won their final game this week.