A few countries on tour at the moment.
First up Zimbabwe have the luck to be playing in West Indies. Zimbabwe are well bottom of the 'first tier' cricket countries. Hardly surprising when the state that the country is in plus I would hardly think Mugabe would be 100% behind a colonial game like cricket. The West Indies have been going through years & years of a hard time themselves. They cannot seem to produce the brilliant fast bowlers that was once their trade mark. I believe the lure of playing basket ball in the US is just too strong for cricket at the ground level to get its hands on these youngsters.
First up was the now almost compulsory 20-20 game. Zimbabwe were first in to bat & produced just about the worst start imaginable. They had 3 wickets down without a run on the board. From there it could only get better, & it did somewhat as they limped to a pathetic 1 score in the 20 over game of 105 all out with a ball to go. Zimbabwe came out to bowl & started with the unheard of ploy of bowling spin from the first ball. In fact they bowled 18 overs of spin that just did not allow the batsmen to score at anything like test pace, let alone 20-20. So they remarkably managed to defend 105 & win the match without bowling the other side out. West Indies made 79 for 7 off their 20 & must still be having nightmares about the game.
Next up was a 1 day game in Guyana. Zimbabwe batted first & scored a creditable 254-5 off their 50 overs.. In an exciting match, in which the game swung back & forth, West Indies failed to top the score by 2 runs while losing 9 wickets. Again Zimbabwe relied on spin and 42 of the 50 overs they bowled were of that sort...
England batsman Alan Butcher is now their coach with former Zimbabwe Test players Heath Streak and Grant Flower will work alongside Butcher as specialist bowling and batting coaches, and he will be assisted by Stephen Mangongo.
The Zimbabwe side should return to Test cricket as well next year after stopping playing that form of the game in 2005. Luckily politics has taken a back seat in Zimbabwe cricket since the appointment of former captain Alastair Campbell as chairman of selectors in October. I have had the pleasure of knowing Alastair from before he was on the International cricket stage & believe it would have been difficult for them to have found a better or more decent man for the job.
There are another 4 one day matches for them against West Indies but I am sure they are delighted with how things have gone so far.
Lucky England are in Bangladesh for 3 one dayers followed by 2 Tests. Bangladesh are in the place above Zimbabwe in the scheme of things..
The series did not get off to a very good start when current England captain via South Africa, Andrew Strauss decided he could not be bothered to tour. Alastair Cook has gone as captain & has been subsequently rewarded by being left out of the England 20/20 squad for the World Cup - such is loyalty..
England have today just won all three of the 50 over matches. Playing against what many would view as 'lower' opposition the tour is a bit of a chance for some of England's batsmen to regain fading reputations. England duly won the first thanks to a fine knock by Paul Collingwood.
Eoin Morgan scored an unbeaten ton plus to win the second.
WHO??? A new English player that can score runs??
No, not quite, he is Irish & this score gave him a place in the record books as the only player to score a ton in a 1 day International for 2 nations..
He had another fine cameo performance in today's game, by that was won by a Craig Kieswetter ton plus.
WHO??? A new English player that can score runs??
No, not quite, another South African who has just qualified to play for England.
Bangladesh's star has undoubtedly been captain, middle order batsman & slow left-arm orthodox bowler the 22 year old Shakib Al Hasan born in...you guessed it, Bangladesh
. I think he makes the tea time sandwiches as well
He was awarded as The Wisden Cricketer magazine's Test Cricketer of the Year for 2009, so must be fair at most forms of the game...
Finally Australia are in New Zealand. The Wallabies have had a comfortable time at home of late, opening their doors to any nation who can wield a bat & beating the crap out of them without breaking into a sweat. Indeed crowds at the 50 over International versions of the game have tumbled a little there of late so they decided to take a trip to their near neighbours.
Their luck didn't hold here though. Put into bat they made a very creditable 275-8. It had looked like they would have posted over 300 early on, but they kept losing wickets at regular intervals, after getting off to a good start. Nearly all the batsmen for New Zealand contributed as they got it off with 4 balls to spare.
There are another 4 games to go in the series where a bit of a 'handbags at dawn' confrontation between Styris and Australia bowler Mitchell Johnson seems to have made more news than the result..
. They scored 70 odd before Carberry was out.