Buck's Blog: Getting into the Spirit
Fri, 22 January 2010
Over 43,000 people made it through the turnstiles last Friday night to watch Victoria destroy Tassie in a Twenty20 game. With Brad Hodge leading the charge and landing them regularly in the crowd, it was a great spectacle for the sport. But for those who made it to the MCG early would have been given a nice bonus. The Victorian Women's side - the Spirit - were taking on the ACT Meteors in the warm-up match and put on a great show. Women's cricket hasn't probably found the respect it desires yet. The standard has often been compared to the men's and consequently been dismissed. Personally I haven't taken too much notice of women's cricket so was unsure what to expect Friday. I thought perhaps it might even be a little comical. But I was very much surprised. The girls had a blinder of a game and it came down to the last three balls. The Spirit were outplayed for the majority but nearly pulled off a miraculous victory, only to just fall short. But apart from the result, the match provided a high degree of skill, technique and power. Not what I was expecting. The Spirit batted first, and set about hitting their way to a high score. Elyse Villani smacked two cut shots for four in the second over and it looked like they were on their way. However some good disciplined bowling by the ACT girls did the job and the Spirit stumbled. Unfortunately where the Spirit let themselves down was their running between the wickets. It wasn't until Emma Inglis and Kelly Applebee got together in the 12th over that quick singles came into play and it was a bit late by then to post a big score. By the time the Spirit got the ball in hand, they were up against it and the ACT girls played quite sensibly to run the Spirit's total down despite a few scares near the end. But what was interesting was the tactics used by the girls. A third man wasn't used at all throughout the game, even when the fastest bowler, Spirit's Julie Hunter, was bowling. The girls have obviously realised that they don't have the pace of the men and therefore the ball tends to be hit in front of square more. Another interesting trait was the big hitting tended to go over extra cover. Perhaps on the big MCG, it is hard for the girls to hit over long on and long off and therefore boundaries need to come from placement. Extra cover is rarely defended and the majority of boundaries were struck in that direction. There were other peculiarities but overall the standard was very impressive. Running between the wickets could be improved as could fielding, even though some of the arms of the girls probably got envious looks from some of the Bushrangers - Jess Cameron's direct hit run out was brilliant. But the girls had good power with the bat and crafty skills with the ball. Wides and no-balls were just about non-existent and efforts and energy were equal to the men. The standard - by all reports - has apparently improved dramatically, as have numbers and though the girls don't really get paid, their professionalism was exceptional. The toss left a little to be desired though. Can't say I've ever seen the decision of who's going to bat by Scissor, Paper, Rock except out the back yard. But all in all my first experience of watching a full game of women's cricket was a good one. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before the girls become the main event and start commanding a huge crowd of their own.
by Chris Rogers, opening batsman for the DEC Bushrangers
