Season 52 - Mid Season Review
Hello everyone. Apologies that there hasn't been one of these for a long time, real life getting in the way. I do enjoy these write-ups and I endeavour to bring them back
I do think that either a weekly or a fortnightly post is a nice way to keep everyone who is interested updated on the events of the national team. As above, the World Cup was a little deflating given the 3-0 start but lessons were learned and we have a lot of positives to take out of the season we have had to date. So let's carry on with the update!
OD Tour 1
This was won by Bangladesh who hosted on Dry, Crumbling and Slow. And naturally we were given two Crumbling's followed by 3 Slow's, quite frankly pretty disappointing as we only toured the one medium. It was a first tour for
Akil Dhul, the recently re-named
Snoop Dogg, and young WS
Jabril Kamal. And well, it was an up and down week as we went W L W L W, but the 3-2 record was enough to promote as 3rd through 6th all split the wins with 2 each, so we finished 2nd! Based off the average MR for the week we were 3rd (table toppers Zimbabwe were bottom!) so it was a respectable effort to get that promotion.
Yusuf Mohammad carried as the sole medium with 9 wickets across his 3 matches. Ziayd Khoury yet again showing his defensive bowling ability, going at a division best 2.90rpo from his 157 balls. Zaim Jabbar was the pick of the batsmen with 157 runs, a high score of 133 on the final day carrying us to that promotion. Young captain Al Capone was big on Day 3 with a match winning 88 vs the USA. Jabril Kamal took 6/59 in his two matches combined, which @ 9.83 was second best in the tour and the best for us
Overall puts us in to Div 2 with an outside shot at WC qualification, more on that later.
T20 Tour
We had our first taste at Div 1 T20 since Season 32 last week. It was again spin heavy with Dry, Slow and Crumbling as the 3 pitches to pick our squad from. It was debut tours for
Shaquille Muttalib and
Hamas Mahfuz. It was a nice start to the tour as we beat Sri Lanka convincingly on Day 1. On Day 2 though Muttalib on debut dropped two catches in 3 balls, which then saw that batsman go on to score 54 from 34 and take the game away from us. We were back on the winners list on Day 3 with a win over England, Hud Sam took 6/8!
Day 4 and 5 were both very weird, I do feel like we were unlucky to get 2 points combined from those matches. A tie vs the Dutch (the only team to take points off them this week) when we had double spin OBB closing on a Windy/Crumbling with the RRR very high felt harsh to not win, whilst on Day 5 we managed to bowl well in the second half of the innings to restrict India to 133, but then kept losing wickets like we were trying to chase down 170.
In the end it was a 2-1-2 record to finish 4th (We were 5th on average MR) and survive in Div 1 for another go, and also it means we will qualify for the next T20 World Cup. Zaim Jabbar again topped the batting for us with 121 runs, whilst Hud Sam finished with 11 wickets for the tour, the most in the division. It was a debut tour to forget for Mahfuz as well who went wicketless in his 3 games.
Current Squad
This upcoming week we will run our eyes over the current squad and maybe make a few changes for the future. Along with the players who have been mentioned above, we've also seen
Khayri Nasri and
Ibrahim Nu'man join the 30 man squad.
OD Tour 2
We've got a go at Div 2 in a couple of weeks after the promotion earlier in the season, but the main aim in general with these tours is to try and qualify for the World Cup. Sadly, we're going to need some favours to make it occur. As it stands we are 15th (Need to be top 12), there are 4 teams who we can mathematically overtake. We need 3 of the following 4 to occur:
Beat Bermuda by 2+ wins
Beat Pakistan by -2 wins [Eg be within 2 wins of them]
Beat Zimbabwe by 4+ wins
Beat South Africa by 4.5+ wins.
Bermuda and Pakistan we might be able to accomplish, but overtaking either African side is going to require a massive favour by them whilst we also essentially have a flawless tour. Because of this unlikely scenario, we decided not to bid on the tour, which has been won by Ireland and will be played on Dry, Flat, Slow pitches. Our aim will (obviously) be to at least stay in Division 2 to give us a much better platform for the next tenure
Friendlies
We're still playing friendly matches, not filling in every slot at the moment. But our natural aim is to ensure every new player to the 30 at least is given a friendly match so it appears on the resume for them. I can't promise a tour for anyone who is given a red star but I can and will promise a friendly match for them.
The Future
We will begin putting together a shortlist for the S55 WC (players who will be 30.00 or younger on that WC week) this week
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I still believe in us. The first match is underway as I type this, head over and check it out! The squad list is posted there among running updates
