In the midst of footy finals and spring cleaning, the start of the summer of cricket has slipped under the radar for many.
So just in case you haven’t had Fox Cricket locked on your dial, here’s some things you could’ve missed from the first block of Marsh Cup matches.
South Australia playing in South Australia
Due to the carnival-like set-up of the domestic one-day cup over in recent years, South Australia hasn’t played in front of a home crowd in a long time. How long? Six and a half years in fact, a staggering 2,416 days since they lost to New South Wales on February 17, 2013.
Johan Botha captained the Redbacks’ side that day, Dan Christian opened the batting and Alex Carey made his debut.
Sam Heazlett, remember him?
In January 2017, Heazlett’s sixth career List A match was his ODI debut. He’s barely been spoken about in terms of national selection since but the talented left-hander has start this summer like a house on fire.
The opener has struck four consecutive 50s – 70 (57), 51 (43), 88 (86) and 69 (51) – and all at the decent clip too. Planning for the 2023 World Cup has no doubt already begun and the 24-year-old has done his hopes of adding to his solitary ODI cap no harm at all.
Get ready to hear more of Daniel Hughes
It seems not to matter what form of the game he’s playing, Hughes finds a way to make runs. His one-day form had been phenomenal until last season, but his start to this year’s tournament with scores of 112 and 152 (143) have rectified that. His last three BBL campaigns with Sydney Sixers have been very good and last season only three batsman scored more runs than Hughes in the Sheffield Shield.
Daniel Hughes’ record in the Marsh Cup
|
Year
|
Matches
|
Runs
|
HS
|
Average
|
100s
|
|
2016-17
|
7
|
386
|
122
|
64.33
|
1
|
|
2017-18
|
6
|
379
|
122
|
63.16
|
2
|
|
2018-19
|
6
|
97
|
79
|
19.4
|
0
|
|
2019-20
|
4
|
300
|
152
|
100
|
2
|
His 152 against Western Australia was only the 26th score above 150 in Australian domestic one-day cricket, Aaron Finch’s 188* (151) the day before was the 25th.
Hughes is 30 so his time, as far as the national selectors are concerned, is now.
AJ responding to Aussie snub
It wasn’t all that long ago that Andrew Tye was a regular in Australia’s white-ball sides, but he fell out of favour with the ODI side after that horror tour of England last year.
So, he’s responded with wickets. And after four matches, no one has more wickets than Tye’s 10.
Most wickets Marsh Cup 2019
|
Bowler
|
Wickets
|
Average
|
Economy
|
|
Andrew Tye
|
10
|
21.2
|
6.62
|
|
Riley Meredith
|
8
|
24.5
|
5.15
|
|
Jackson Coleman
|
8
|
26
|
5.94
|
Tye is only 32 so theoretically if he’s bowling well enough his international days aren’t over. With the Twenty20 World Cup coming up he’s got a great incentive to return to form.
Hammy makes amends for last season’s drop
Sometimes in life you’re gifted a golden opportunity. Rarely are you gifted two. But credit to Junction Oval-aficionado Hammy Goodman, he made the most of his second chance one year on.
You won’t see a more content man.
Who will open in your next Test as your opening merry go round continues?
Harris in particular (Next to no runs and two crucial dropped catches looked way out of his depth in England).
Fantastic question. The general feeling is that David Warner is a lock – but he (like everyone else) needs to score some FC runs before a Test spot can be guaranteed. The red ball stuff starts here on Thursday but runs permitting I think they might go with Warner and Usman Khawaja – Joe Burns and Marcus Harris need a couple of hundreds to get in the mix.
“A couple of hundreds…”. From what I saw of Harris I’d imagine that he needs about four triple hundreds to get in the mix!