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.

Zim tour take aways

So the Proteas played some games in Zimbabwe. What can we take away from this? In no particular order...

Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo is a beautiful venue
Glorious to see red ball cricket in a venue like that. Village charm etc. The crowds looked to be having a good time too.

Wiaan Mulder and Brian Lara disagree about batting records
Was the declaration the right decision? I don't know, but I think we all know that if Mulder was batting against Australia, 1-0 up in a two match series, he sure as hell wouldn't have declared.

L-Dre Pretorius is a pretty good batter
At least for biffing first class bowlers on a flattish pitch. Still, I liked what I saw so far. He seems to have loads of time and all the shots.

Corbin Bosch is a pretty good all rounder
At least ... you know. Although looking at the list this is still a great achievment. It's a short list, and plenty others are against the minnows of the time.

Zim have got some money to spend
Why else would they be playing all this Test cricket? Cool, cool. They have some promising young players, I hope it works out for them.

There is also T20 tri series. It's not quite done yet but I guess my takeaway from that will be that tri-series were kind of weird in the 90's and have not improved since. And that NZ are much better than the Protea's B team and Zimbabwe's A team.