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Cricket Digest for Jan 11, 2009

Well it was a privilege to have watched the highlights of this T20I, I got to watch some exciting new faces! Aussies have won the first of the two T20Is and today they beat the Proteas by a comfortable margin of 52 runs. The Aussies batted first and put up 182 on the board with debutant David Warner playing a whirlwind knock of 89 from 43 balls with 7 fours and 6 sixes! The 22-year-old left handed Warner opened the innings and took the South Africans by storm. This short fellow showed a lot of disdain as he stood and whacked the white cricket ball up and across to the onside. The South Africans under a feeble leader Johan Botha had no answer to this new sensation from New South Wales. One particular shot stood out for me, it was that of Warner effortlessly hooking a 149 kmph short delivery from Steyn for a six towards fine leg. What I observed was the time that Warner had to get back in a great position and then to use the bowler’s extra pace to his advantage. Warner was unlucky to have missed out on a hundred and after his fall the Aussies had a collapse towards the end and had to settle for a lesser total. Warner had raced away to a half century in just 19 balls.

That total of 182 was more than enough for Ricky Ponting as his quick bowlers made the inroads to make the task a difficult one for the South Africans. The lone man fighting for the visitors was the impressive Jean-Paul Duminy who made a brilliant 78 from 48 balls with 9 fours and a six. I just enjoyed watching the bowling of Shaun Tait and Ben Hilfenhaus who were seriously quick! I reckon the Aussies have a great future in all formats of the game should they pick the right players! SA were bowled out for 130 which made the match a bit one-sided in the last few minutes when Albie Morkel had got out.

Well it was just amazing to see a packed crowd at the MCG with over 60,000 people! All these young guys who have given such a superb performance like Warner, Duminy, David Hussey have really shown their temperament! Both the sides were electric on the field, it was quite stunning to see the quickness on the field from most of the players! I would like to bring here a couple of points about the Australians’ behaviour on the field : the first instance was when AB de Villiers fell down having got painfully struck around his waist and got hit wicket in the process, the bowler Shaun Tait was celebrating without showing any concern for the injured batsman! The second instance was just after the last SA wicket fell that a couple of the Australian players were making fun of the No.11 batsman Lonwabo Tsotsobe’s strange looking stance.

Ranji Final from tomorrow at Hyderabad

So finally we have come towards the end of the Ranji season for this year. Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh are the two teams to have prevailed and I am pretty sure that the former has a great chance of clinching another Ranji Trophy title. Mumbai have got an extremely strong batting line up that includes Sachin Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma and Wasim Jaffer and in the bowling department they have got Zaheer Khan. It is quite a task for Uttar Pradesh to upset Mumbai but they have got some young talent in Shivakant Shukla and Suresh Raina who should seize the moment and come up with a big hundred! This final is going to be a 5-day match starting tomorrow and is going to be played at the beautiful Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.