v Oxford MCCU at The Parks

Day 3

 

Typical cricket weather, fog, drizzle and bad light. Notts almost forced a victory thanks to a bowling burst from Andy Carter but the weather saved Oxford's day ultimately - the umpires taking the players off at 16:46 with the students nine down.

 

Earlier a Steven Mullaney 50 and a rapid fire 37 from Luke Fletcher had set-up a target of 311 for the "academics" but after Carter 4/7 had taken Notts to the brink, in Shahzad's absence, the drizzle came down with its partner in crime, bad light!

Looking at all the national scorecards, similar conditions must have been up and down the country - at Derby I noticed the lights were on as I travelled past along the A52 during the afternoon. - or has that been re-numbered too to Aaaa52?

How low can you go?

Game 29

v Northamptonshire friendly

Sheffield Shield Final - Manuka Oval

NSW  finished Day 4 of 5 well on top at Manuka Oval, Canberra. WA look a beaten side in this decider. We joined about 2,500 other cricket watchers yesterday morning to see Day 3 on a sunny day in the capital. Overnight WA were a miserable 15-4 in reply to NSW's 447 all out. Josh Hazlewood and Trent Copeland tore in to try to remove the remaining batsmen. Ryan Duffield soon edged a rising delivery from Hazlewood to keeper Peter Nevill ; 23-5. It was a backs to the wall effort after that as Shaun and Mitch Marsh tried to repair the ''train wreck'' - Justin Langer's [WA's manager] description of their innings at close of Day 2

England out

Game 18

South Africa resisted New Zealand to win by 2 runs, Ross Taylor being run out off the last ball.

Game 19

Netherlands spiralled to a record low T20i score, 39, against Sri Lanka in a game that only lasted 93 deliveries, losing by 9 wickets.

Game 20

West Indies thrashed the tournament hosts by 73 runs.

Hales storms to England win while fines rain down

Game 21

Netherlands' Stephan Myburgh (51) narrowly missed out on chasing down a below par South African total (145) as none of his compatriots could assist him for long, not coming to terms with South Africa's Pakistani import, Imran Tahir 4/21. SA winning by 6 runs. Earlier Malik Jamil had bowled well with figures of 5/19 - England be warned!

Game 22

Alex Hales turned-in a performance that would have netted him a wad of cash from the IPL if he'd done earlier in the winter. Alex's remarkable innings was against all the odds; Lumb gone for nought, Moeen followed him also with a duck but then after some consolidation with Eoin Morgan, Hales went increasingly expansive. Sri Lanka has previously won 14 T20 games on the bounce and had never failed to defend a score of 160+; that was until Alex Hales today scored England's primary T20 century. Hales 116 not out, England won by 6 wickets and with 4 balls to spare.

Despite Sri Lanka's excuses of a wet ball etc, England have used them all previously, Nuwan Kulasekara managed 4/32

England have been clobbered with a fine due to slow over rates against Sri Lanka - Broad is hit by 40% of his match fee whilst the rest of the team get hit by 20% theirs.

Stuart Broad is now on effectively on 12 months probation; any repeat and he will cop a ban.

Faf du Plessis will be missing from South Africa's match against England for that very same reason; slow over rates (against NL) in game that England have"control" over their own destiny towards the semi-finals.

Game 23

West Indies chased down the re-jigged Australians target of 179, winning by six wickets.

Game 24

India out classed Bangladesh.

Game 25

New Zealand beat Netherlands at a canter by 6 wickets with 6 balls to spare

Game 26

Business back to (an inept) usual

After the elation of Hales heroics in game 22, England crashed back down to Earth. England were brought down by some princely batting by AB de Villiers (69*) who was fed a diet of predictable dross by the clown prince, Jade Dernbach 3 overs for 44 runs - England's defeat was aided and abetted by dropped catches and missed stumpings as well Hashim Amla (56) - so business back to this winter's usual. In spite of chasing 197, England did get to being just 4 runs short - the order being just too tall - generally down to their own failings.

Game 27

Pakistan brushed aside hosts Bangladesh in an easy 50 run win.

Game 28

Like England, Australia are eliminated  and showed little fight in their last game against India., losing by 73 runs; all out 86.

Hosiery Mills cop a penalty

The Nottinghamshire Cricket Board and the twelve member clubs of the Premier League have resolved the issues that threatened to disrupt the 2014 season.

Durham v MCC at Abu Dhabi

23rd March - the official start to the 2014 season.

Durham take on MCC who include three Notts players.

Postcard from NSW

G'day 

Hope you are keeping well and looking forward to the new season there...not long to go now...I see Anuj Dal played in Barbados for Notts...he is a contemporary of Rhys Hayes...a fine young player...Kimberley CC and Nottingham High School ...would have loved to have seen Rhys in the green and gold..hopefully he still could.

World Cup gets serious - well the Netherlands do!

Game 9

Nepal beat Afghanistan by 9 runs

World Cup Preliminaries

Game 1

Anamul mauls Afghanistan

Afghanistan were hounded out by hosts, Bangladesh, 72 all out. Cricinfo had their headline on their home page of "Shahzad out first ball", which initially grabbed my Outlaw attention but the Shahzad in question was Mohammed rather than Ajmal and he was out ball 1, in over 1 of game 1.