Captain's Chat: It's all happening
Mon, 18 January 2010
Brad Hodge is still among the top three or four batsmen in the world when it comes to the exciting format of Twenty20 cricket. He put on a masterclass again when it counted, to ensure our spot in Tuesday night's qualifying final. His century starting stand with Aaron Finch ensured our spot in the showdown and for many, it's appropriate we are playing the Queenslanders again in Brisbane after the rain-affected finish up at the 'Gabba just after Christmas. We were awarded that game courtesy of Mr Duckworth and Mr Lewis because our run-rate at the time of one of those monsoonal type rain squalls was marginally superior to Queensland. We have always had good, competitive games with the Bulls and Tuesday's match should again be a thriller. We welcome back our international Ross Taylor and will know on the day if Matty Wade's ankle will enable him to play. Ryan Carters did a nice neat job as a back-up against Tasmania and will play again if there is any doubt about Matty's ankle. Ross's 58 up at the 'Gabba in the opening match was one of the reasons why we did win after he'd lost our first three runs for just a handful of runs. I'd like to have a bit of luck with the toss. My record in the Twenty20s so far is "perfect", five tosses, five losses! We've invariably been asked to chase and as the stats show it is harder to win batting second. Shippy and the selectors have plenty of options with the batting order on Tuesday and hopefully next Saturday night as well with Aaron Finch, one of our real talents, now putting his hand up at the head of the order. Queensland has been playing good cricket, headed by their captain Chris Simpson who has been in blistering form at the top of the order, so we know nothing short of our best will lift us into Saturday night's final. We'd love to be part of the Champions League again later in the year. It's a rich prize which is great for us and for cricket throughout Victoria with some of the extra prizemoney being spent in game development areas. We made some changes in our strategies leading into the Tasmanian game. We wanted to change it up a bit and we did. Hopefully we are coming into some real form at the right time of the summer. We appreciated so many fans turning out. Take out Boxing Day and it was the biggest crowd of the 2009-10 summer so far and they made a lot of noise which was great. Hodgey loves a big occasion and he put on a real show. We'd love him or any of the other top five or six to do it again on Tuesday as the Bulls will be coming at us hard. One of the big plusses for us against the Tassies was being able to restrict them to just 60 or so runs in their last 10 overs when they had wickets in hand at the halfway mark. Dirk Nannes and Clint McKay both did great jobs and are really important for us at the 'Gabba, Dirk with his good pace and Clint with all his tricks and change-ups. They both conceded less than 30 runs from their four overs, as well as taking a couple of wickets each, which was important in restricting the Tasmanian score. It has been a busy summer already for us with not too much "r and r" time. The international one-dayers now start and that is another challenge for all of us. From a personal point of view I have been pleased to have been making a contribution in the overseas one-dayers and hopefully that can continue too from Brisbane on Friday. We have a five game Commonwealth Bank series with Pakistan and five more with the West Indies. There are two or three Twenty20s slotted in amongst all that too. I want to make sure I keep on doing my bit and making a contribution. It's challenging... and a whole heap of fun. Thanks for your support, emails and messages of good wishes. It's greatly appreciated. Go the Vics... and go the Aussies!
by DEC Bushrangers captain Cameron White
