"How shit you must be if I got you out twice!"
-Paul Harris to Andrew Symonds, Perth 2008

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Ashy P

Pee on the Ashes was Man-of-the-Match at the MTN40 final for the Warriors. Not by some fluke, he actually scored 128 runs. I would say it's not surprising, considering the only national level bowler I recognize in the opposition is Andrew Hall. But that could just be me and the fact that I don't live in a cricket mad nation. Tragedy of my life, but I'll tell you about that some other time.

This award means he will surely open in India. I am not amused.

He could be back in form or he could just be having a good day. Either way, what does batting for 40 overs in a completely different pitch have anything to do with Tests in India? Saffa interim coach Corrie, who has a very unfortunate name, has pinpointed him as a primary concern. Evidently, he will let Ashy P play where he wants, which means he will probably bat at 5 or 6.

So who will open? Neil McKenzie is no longer available. He has signed with Hampshire as a Kolpak. KP will be very happy that he can speak Afrikaans with someone other than Trotty who probably carries out different rituals before opening his mouth.

So that leaves us with Hash, which is a bad idea. As much I love him, he has a tendency to get out early in difficult conditions. They can't get Alviro Petersen to open in the tests, because that will mean dropping somebody. That somebody will have to be Ashy P, who just scored 128 runs and won the finals for his domestic team. 

My Herschelle will be watching all this on television and shaking his head. I will join him.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go Ashy! and the Dolphins don't have a brilliant bowling line-up, so they were always going to be in the deep end unless they were able to bat first and apply some pressure. (They still rock though! Go Dolphins!)

Ashy has not scored many runs as an opener in the last few tests, but he's hung around for a while (facing around 60 balls). That makes the difference between Amla coming in to face a ball that's 4 overs old or 18 overs old, and that is a huge difference (this is Amla we're talking about).

Definetly not Amla to open. What we need is for someone in the middle order to break something so Ashy can go back to his place and Alviro (or even Imran Khan) can come in as an opener. I even think Heino Khun is ready for a shot at international cricket.

-Frau

Purna said...

Alviro can be in, but in place of who? I doubt Heino will get a chance till Bouchie retires. He is the next wicket keeper yes?

Anonymous said...

Heino is wicketkeeper for the Titans, but he could make the team on his batting alone. He's a very good opener.

In place of who is a good question (that's why I suggested someone break something -that is how Duminy got onto the team after all).

South Africas problem is that the list of their 6 best batsmen only has one opener on it. Micky said in an interview about a year ago that his philosophy was to pick the best six, and then position them as well as you could. I think it would be better to pick your two best openers (Smith and ?), your best no 3 (Amla), and then your three best middle-orders (Kallis, AB, Duminy or Prince).

-Frau

Purna said...

I would like to break Biff's nose. Can I? He can get surgery to fix it after. It looks like a disaster now.

I think they should get AB to open. I suspect he will be good at it...

Anonymous said...

It??s truly a great [url=http://pandoracharmsukmall.co.uk]pandora charms uk[/url] and helpful piece of information. I??m glad that you shared this useful info with us. [url=http://pandoracharmsukmall.co.uk]cheap pandora charms[/url] , Please keep us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.