Photo retro: 2007-09-12 - Aus vs Zim at Newlands

This was the first match in Group B of the inaugural ICC T20 World Cup. Australia batted first and meandered to 138/9, Symonds and Hodge scoring most of it. T20 was pretty new but even then it was clear this was a below-par score. Still with an attack of Lee, Bracken, Clark and Johnson Australia wouldn't have been unduly worried.

Brendan Taylor had other ideas, and hit 60 (45) to take the Zimbos to a memorable 5 wicket win. Australia still qualified top of Group B by thrashing England in their next game. Pictured are the scenes shortly after the victory - the Zimbabweans about to launch into a victory lap, the Australians stunned, and the ground staff rushing to cover the pitch under overcast skies.

This was one of two games I attended during that tournament. My middle brother was in town and came along; we were somewhat coincidentally joined by two young ladies. At least one of them was a cricket fan. We were seated in the lower stands just between the WPCC and the sitescreen. Not my favourite viewing location, but it did put Bro in position to catch one of Taylor's two sixes (not clean as it rebounded off a hand in front of us). We were expecting a low key encounter and were pleasantly surprised at being at such a memorable victory.

Afterwards we went for milkshakes because the ladies wanted to, then we dropped them off and went drinking in Claremont.

Photo was taken on my Fujifilm Finepix A350, without too much zoom.

On The Nature Of All Rounders

All rounders are crickets most valuable players. Arguments over them rage longer than plain batsmen and bowlers.

One of the reasons is that all rounders are hard to pidgeon-hole into buckets. After all, every cricketer is an all rounder to some extent. Everyone can bat and bowl, that's how we learn cricket growing up. We've all played in school cricket teams where half the team bats in the top order and bowls all the overs while the other half can't bat or bowl at all.

Another reason is that all rounders are so vital to team composition. Generalising across formats, a team usually needs at least five guys who can bowl, one guy to keep wicket, and as many guys as possible who can bat. How you optimise team composition given those constraints and the varying skills of the players available is a key problem facing coaches and captains.

I've had this post parked in draft for years, not quite able to put my thoughts into words without sounding like a rambling reddit fanboi as I categorised the different types of all rounders and then speculated on the nature of team composition.

Luckily Jarrod Kimber has laid this all out way better than I could. Enjoy: