The England Globetrotters

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Matt H in 40/50-over, Opinion, T20

Firstly in our not-quite-weekly round up of England’s not-quite-stars playing around the world, to South Africa, where Owais Shah helped Cape Cobras to victory over Dolphins in the one-day tournament. Chasing 186 from 50 overs, Cobras cruised to an eight-wicket win from only 29 overs, with Shah finishing with an unbeaten 37*. The final against Warriors is tomorrow at Newlands; Cobras will be confident of victory on their home turf.

Elsewhere in Africa, the Zimbabwean T20 tournament has finished and all three Englishmen were in the final. Phil Mustard found some form and made consecutive scores of 40 and 44 against Southern Rocks and Matabeleland Tuskers. Meanwhile, Peter Trego registered 71* for Mashonaland Eagles against Rhinos, followed by 45, 21 and 17. In those games his bowling figures varied, taking 0-14, 1-24, 4-27 and 1-35. His teammate Rory Hamilton-Brown was less successful with the bat (19, 7, 26) but contributed with the ball (2-32, 2-10, 1-16 and 1-20) as Eagles themselves reached the final.

In the final, Mountaineers batted first and Mustard contributed 56 from only 31 balls. He was eventually dismissed by Hamilton-Brown, who finished with 2-14, whilst Trego’s 1-15 was respectably economical. Mountaineers finished on 142/6. Eagles regularly lost wickets, including Trego for 1 and Hamilton-Brown for 5, and were always behind the run-rate. Mustard contributed two dismissals as Eagles staggered to 115 all out from 18.1 overs.

Finally to New Zealand, where Steven Finn had a disappointing climax to his mini-season with Otago. Figures of 0-55 and 3-71 against Wellington can be described as reasonable, but they came in a 286-run defeat. Overall from his four matches, nine wickets at 36.22 apiece were hardly fantastic, but they came at a good economy rate (2.52) in a string of fairly mediocre team performances. Hopefully Finn will have learnt from his experience and he can continue to improve his game in a manner befitting of one of the world’s most promising bowlers.