World Twenty20 Day Two

Hello. My name is Andrew Hughes, I’m a right handed writer and my favourite piece of punctuation is the semi-colon.

Yes, the latest innovation in televisual infotainment is the cheery player introduction in which the next batsman out of the bus shelter grins a pre-recorded grin and announces his name, batting orientation and preferred method of dismissal. Occasionally, a maverick may slip in extraneous information they feel will tickle the viewer’s fancy. So today we learned that David Hussey is known as ‘Huss’ to his teammates. Thanks David. Never let it be said that Team Australia lack whimsy.

They do, however, lack a certain je ne sais quoi, an indefinable something, a Quantam of Roy-ness. Thus far, Dame Twenty20 has smiled kindly on the brave, the reckless and the biff-happy, qualities that reach their apogee in the personage of Andrew Symonds. But whilst Australia have rejected their talented troublemaker, West Indies have made theirs captain. The long tall Jamaican has been the subject of many purse-lipped English editorials for not pretending to like Test cricket, but he’s always been a favourite in the Hughes household and his casual butchery of Lee, Johnson and Bracken was balm to soothe the English soul.

Earlier on in the day, Scotland had threatened to reduce the tournament to anarchy by toppling New Zealand’s dignity as Netherlands had done to England the night before. Sadly, some stout bat-lashing was let down by a fielding performance that was more Mrs Doubtfire than Braveheart. In fact, if Jonty Rhodes was watching today’s games, he might be in need of resuscitation about now. The West Indies in particular set the cause of ball retrieval back a generation or two with a performance that suggested the white Duke had been replaced by a live grenade.

For a while, India were showing them how it was done. Indeed, catch of the tournament so far was pulled off by everyone’s favourite sulky superstar, Yuvraj Singh. In the thirteenth over, he leapt like a gazelle or at least, like a hippo that had been on a diet, to claim a stunner. He roared his celebration to the night sky. I am Yuvraj, King of Fielders! Look on me and despair, ye mighty!

Nemesis arrived, ahead of schedule, in the next over. A gentle lob looped towards our hero, travelling so slowly that it seemed to pause for a moment or two in mid-air. “Catch me, Yuvraj, catch me!” the ball sang as it hung there, defying gravity. But in an oopsy-daisy moment it bounced from his knuckles and nestled with a disappointed sigh in the turf. The fielding gods giveth and they taketh away.