Twenty20 Cricket - WOW!!!!

Twenty20 Cricket.Well we didn't get to add the Twenty20 World Cup to our trophy cabinet, and we were certainly beaten in the semi-final by a wonderful team. The Indians were red-hot, especially Youvraj Singh. What an innings he played! We just had nowhere to turn when he was carting us all over Durban! His strokeplay was audacious to say the least, and it didn't seem to matter what we bowled, he just feasted on every delivery. It was very well done, and despite our very best efforts, we just couldn't rein him in.

It was, of course, very difficult to chase down such a total without Ricky, the world's best batsman. Our lads tried their best,and despite another string of hamstring injuries (Mr Cricket, Bradley Hodge and Brad Haddin) they got pretty close in the end - just 15 runs away from a huge total. I was very proud of them.

We will watch the final with great interest, particularly because we will be heading straight to India for seven One Day Internationals (50 overs style!)

Several of our lads have shown that they are amongst the world's best even in this unfamiliar (to us) form of the game. Our opening bowlers did very well, as did the other back-up quicks. Haydos was scintillating, and several others showed great application. We will learn a lot from that "carnival", and as we play more and more, we will eliminate some of the small errors that we made. Experience is a great teacher!

Now for India. Last time we were there we won a Test series for the first time in a long while, and we are really looking forward to this series. India will come into the series on a high, epecially if they beat Pakistan in the Twenty20 final. We have some injury worries, with Punter, Watto, Huss, Hadds and Hodgy all carrying severe injuries. The replacements are all very seasoned players, though, and I especiallylook forward to keeping to Ben Hilfenhaus in Indian conditions.

Next time I write, we will be well into the seven match series. Till then, play well and keep well!