Tag: Australia

AUSSIES LOSE OUT

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The Australian Cricket team has been defeated by Sri Lanka in the first T20 match played at Sydney. Sri Lanka won the match by 5 wickets. With this victory, Sri Lanka has taken a lead of 1-0 in the 2-match T20 series.

The match was pretty much one-sided. Sri Lanka looked a better team in the match and after stopping Australia to a modest total, the Sri Lankan batsmen chased down the target quite comfortably with 7 balls still to be bowled.

It was the Australian skipper, George Bailey, who won the toss and decided that his team would bat first. Australia wasn’t off to a flyer. Sri Lanka got the first breakthrough in the second over. Aaron Finch was the first man to be dismissed. He tried to play the ball towards leg side, but, he closed the face of the bat early and ended up giving it a leading edge. The ball popped up in the air and Kushal Perera took a brilliant diving catch in the covers.

Shaun Marsh ran himself out when the score of Australia was 31. George Bailey came to bat at no. 4 and he was hitting the ball well, but, he was deceived by a slower delivery from Thisara Perera. Australia was not in a good position at 53 for 3, but, after that, David Warner and Adam Voges put up a fine partnership. At first, they put their heads down and knocked the ball around for some time. But, when the score got past 100, they opened their shoulders and played some powerful shots.

At the end of 20 overs, the score of Australia was 137 runs for the loss of 3 wickets.

In reply, Sri Lanka started well and the opening pair put up a partnership of 46 runs. Although, the Sri Lankan team lost a few quick wickets in the middle, but, that didn’t matter much. The skipper Angelo Mathews and Thisara Perera played sensibly towards the end and saw their team home. Mathews and Perera remained not out on 35 and 19 respectively.

David Warner was declared man of the match for his great knock.

AUSSIES NEED SPINNERS

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The T20 captain of Australia, George Bailey, has said that Australia needs to find unorthodox spinners if the team has to do well in the next T20 World Cup which is going to be held in Bangladesh in 2014.

While talking to the reporters after his return from Sri Lanka, Bailey said, “If you have to do well under subcontinent conditions, you need to have a bit of variety in your spin bowling attack. But, we didn’t have any unorthodox spinner.”

“You look at the other top T20 sides and you will find that they have got a mystery spinner in their bowling line up. Pakistan has Saeed Ajmal, Sri Lanka has Ajantha Mendis, West Indies has Sunil Narine and India has Ravichandran Ashwin. But, we don’t have any mystery spinner. We need to find one pretty soon, otherwise, we will struggle again in Bangladesh.

“We had two specialist spinners in our squad, but, both of them were the orthodox ones. Xavier Doherty doesn’t bowl arm bowl too often and only bowls the delivery which comes in for the left hander. Brad Hogg has got a wrong one, but, his wrong one is not as lethal as a ‘carrom ball’ or a ‘doosra’.

“In Australia, the unorthodox spinners are not encouraged at the junior level. At the Under-11 or Under-13 level, they are told to bring orthodoxy in their bowling and try to be a genuine leg spinner or off spinner. But, we have to change our approach a bit. We need to encourage such type of spinners at junior level.”

When asked whether he wants to continue captaining the side, Bailey said, “Yes, I am enjoying the captaincy and I want to continue leading the Australian T20 side in the future. But, it all depends on the selectors. If they think that I am doing a good job as a captain, I will be more than happy to continue captaining the side.”