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"The West Indians are already saying that, with six of their best players preferring to play Big Bash League than Test cricket last summer."
Mike all I can say is thank god their influence not to play Test cricket is not rubbing off on the younger generation. At least not this youngster.. Jayden Seales who is opening the Windies attack in the World Cup.

His father Larry says. "He wants to represent West Indies in Test cricket. He has always said to me that the pinnacle of his career will be the day he plays cricket for five days straight wearing the West Indies cap." Good for you Larry Seales and Jayden. Here is hoping that Jayden's team mates feel the same. Betting they do.

Surely only Australia can go thru to the next stage tonite unless England wins within 40 overs or something as our net run rate is far in access of theirs.

Two years ago it was "the ginja ninja"  Lloyd Pope that weaved a web over England this time Tanveer Sangha is aiming to do the same. Sangha who already has 9 wickets from his two matches  makes it clear he does not copy any other leg spinner but rather plays his own game.

" Unlike Popey I don't take most of my wickets with wrong'uns, I try to take them with my stock ball and try to strategically get batsmen out more than anything. I don't try to bowl as quick as I can. I try to vary my pace."

 

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Today Australia U19 Match

Australia U19 vs England U19, Match 16, Group B

Head to Head

LAST FIVE MATCHES					DATE	SERIES/TOURNAMENT
AUS19	127	beat	96	ENG19	23/01/18	Under-19s World Cup
AUS19	294/6	lost to	297/6	ENG19	22/08/15	Australia Under-19s tour of England 2015
AUS19	101/3	beat	99	ENG19	20/08/15	Australia Under-19s tour of England 2015
AUS19	226/7	lost to	229/7	ENG19	17/08/15	Australia Under-19s tour of England 2015
AUS19		match abandoned		ENG19	14/08/15	Australia Under-19s tour of England 2015

Date & Time: Jan 22 2020 8:00 AM GMT / 10:00 AM LOCAL 1:30 PM IST.
Venue: Diamond Oval, Kimberley


Squad

England U19 Squad:

Ben Charlesworth, Jordan Cox(w), Tom Clark, Jack Haynes, Dan Mousley, Joey Evison, Lewis Goldsworthy, George Balderson(c), Kasey Aldridge, Blake Cullen, Hamidullah Qadri, George Hill, Scott Currie, Harry Duke, Sam Young

Australia U19 Squad:

Sam Fanning, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Mackenzie Harvey(c), Oliver Davies, Lachlan Hearne, Todd Murphy, Patrick Rowe(w), Tanveer Sangha, Liam Scott, Liam Marshall, Bradley Simpson, Corey Kelly, Matthew Willans, Cooper Connolly, Connor Sully

Live Score and update of this match

Yep Australia holds bragging rights over the old enemy after a crushing win in 2018. Fox Cricket is showing the match.

The great escape by Australia to win on the final delivery. Australia required 46 runs with 4.2 overs and only 2 wickets left and thanks to Connor Sully unbeaten 35 off 20 deliveries and Todd Murphy 16 off 10 deliveries got the runs on the final delivery. Those two were also the pick of the bowlers. A good innings by MacKenzie Harvey supported by Lachlan Hearne saw Australia 2/152 and continuing their dominance over England, but very ordinary batting by the middle order saw Australia lose 6 wickets for 53 before Sully took the long handle to England. Australia very lucky to be moving into the finals and it is the man of the match performance by Connor Sully that the team need to thank.

Dependent on tonight's game India V New Zealand where the winner will be Australia's opponent in the quarter finals. Cooper Connolly needs to come in for the first quarter final, but Australia seem reluctant to drop Liam Scott due to his bowling, so will they be prepared to drop Oliver Davies?

The performance by Australia so far means that they could play favourites India in the first Quarter final on Jan 28, and some players need to step up for them to progress 
Other quarter finals
possibly New Zealand V West Indies
Bangladesh Pakistan Afghanistan and either South Africa or UAE

Surely given the net r/r difference England needed to win big to proceed. Or is Nigeria their lifeline. In the end the Pommies decided to make it interesting..  .Sangha was rather a surprise.. with only the solitary wicket. Seems the Poms have improved their wrist spin play from two years back. Can not fathom why our best rated quick Liam Marshall has not played.
I forgot to watch the match. Was trying to save my pool from turning into a swamp after a ferocious hailstorm had washed a wheelbarrow load of dirt and palm tree debris into it. 

A hi-flying India stand in the way of Australia going thru to the semis tonite. The Aussie selectors need to make a change or two. Liam Scott has to go for Liam Marshall. Leftie Willans has been moderate at best too and must be under some pressure to hold his place.. specially given he came into the tournament in poor form.

A good effort by the Aussie attack to restrict India to 9-233.

Excellent effort by the bowlers especially considering the calibre of batsmen India have.

But we lost it when they left Cooper Connolly out again. He was one of the best in the U19 Australian championships, yet once again played Oliver Davies who has done nothing apart from score a 200 against Northern Territory 18 months ago. Even in that particular tournament apart from the 200 only av 30 against the other states. Purely a minnow basher, and it showed only scoring 7 runs for the entire tournament. He didn't play the last U19 Australian champs so he should not have been selected. What makes his performance worse is the amount CA has invested in him recently being chosen in 2019 CA National Performance Squad – MRF Tour of India. Some are very fortunate at the selection table, they don't even have to play to be selected.

Lachlan Hearne, another one that was recently selected in the National Performance Squad, again failed with the step up to an international level. I'll give CA one thing they know how to waste money. The money spent for that 20 day tour to India could have been better spent at the grass roots development and benefited more than just a select few,

Disappointing effort by the young blokes but there will be many sitting back in Australia who performed at the Nationals yet were overlooked by selectors in favour of others who haven't played anything, and now those players have to decide whether to give the game away and get a career elsewhere. 

My scorecard for this WC

Sam Fanning 136 runs av 68.....................8/10
Tanveer Sangha, 11 wickets @ 13................8/10

Jake Fraser-McGurk 118 runs av 40 ..........7/10
Mackenzie Harvey 89 runs av 30...............7/10
Patrick Rowe, 6c/1s 72 runs av 24................7/10

Todd Murphy 4 wickets @ 28.5 but helped get Australia into the finals with the bat against England............6/10
Connor Sully 4 wickets @ 34 but got us into the finals with the bat against England........6/10

Corey Kelly, 3 wickets @ 26........................5/10
Bradley Simpson. 4 wickets @ 20.................5/10
Matthew Willans, 2 wickets @ 33..................4/10

Lachlan Hearne, 50 runs av 16.6................3/10
Liam Scott 1/41 and 40 runs av 10..............3/10

Oliver Davies, 7 runs av 2.3.......................1/10

Liam Marshall only played against Nigeria 1/17 why was he there?
Cooper Connolly did not play why was he there?

Mike you just love having the chance to rubbish anyone wearing a Blue cap.. but this time it is deserved on Oliver Davies who never got out of first gear in this tournament. Lachlan Hearn was not far behind him. Still faith in them for big futures. In a return of serve where was the penetration from opening bowlers Sully and Willans.. specially Willans. His first four overs were mediocre at best when he needed to be tearing in with some venom and prying open early wickets like India's opening quick did. By the time he and Sully built some pressure with swing and accuracy the Indian openers were settling in. Why again was Liam Marshall left out? Cooper Connolly is I believe even younger than JFMac. There for the experience. 

The selectors as per usual got things arse up Mike by selecting blokes that did not deserve it and leaving others at home that did. In retrospect Davies was not match fit.. mentally at least having not played for months prior to the tournament so was picked on reputation. Willans did not have the wickets on the board to be selected yet Harvey chose him to open when he needed to be first change. The most impressive of our quicks was Corey Kelly. Sangha never stepped up in the final either.. Murphy outbowled him.

I was alarmed as was Aussie comm Tom Moody when it was revealed that Australia had played only a piddling 7 international matches prior to the WC compared to India's 31. It is now clear that extra match practice and match awareness proved a telling point when the chips were down. CA as per usual falling down on its job.

Some of those games for India, is their selection process. They have India A B and C teams playing against Nepal. They did a quad series India A and B against South Africa and Afghanistan. The difference between them and us is India only select performers, every single one of their players selected have performed in these series.  Jaiswal scored 200 at List A level, how do you compete against that? Easy, select only those that have performed on field. The last U19 championships, Tom Kelly, Dylan Brasher, Owen Mitchell, Issac Higgins, just weren't selected.

After being around the tournaments, I can tell you exactly what went on over in Western Australia at the U19 championships. They've already picked the side and just follow around those particular players, everyone else is ignored. So sick of people ignoring on-field performances, these are just kids trying to get ahead in life, they are performing when it matters, now they have to go off to their states begging for a rookie contract, or else have to look for some other means of employment. But those selected for Australia U19 have nothing to worry about CA just throw money at them. These cricket pathways contracts are all BS, scrap them and make all players work for their selection.

Look at Labuchagne, never selected for Australia U19 team, but one thing they can't judge is which players have work ethics and are prepared to practice a lot. 

Especially ignoring national champs results. Why hold them then in that case Mike. 

An interesting piece by a Fox sport journo re the Australian U19 squad and selections. Seems the selections strategy largely based on ideology, rather than performance?

https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/australia/opinion-the-ideological-struggles-ruining-australian-crickets-present-and-future/news-story/e4b9fc5f071ff6a9f6eed15960e4b932

I read this. There still has to be room for the bloke picked on promise.. the one that is out of the box.. Bradman, Tendulkar, Steve Smith. But having said that, you have to select on performance. That has to be the primary criteria. I often bring up a veteran who is still performing on WP and am shot down in flames pronto" too old"  "past it". If he is outperforming blokes half his age then how is he past it or too old. He also adds vital experience to the equation.

Pity he did not display it during the WC pool rounds but tonite Oliver Davies showed the talent he possesses as the Aussies took on the Windies for a 5th place finish..  Coach Buck Rodgers says Davies is the best player of spin in the squad. Easy to see why.. most impressive use of the feet against the Windies spin duo. He was cruising when impetuosity got the better of him.. trying to ramp a ball to the boundary for the second time... 

Mate you will grasp at any straw when it comes to your beloved Blues. Simply Baggers Oliver Davies is the perfect example of what the above article is talking about. Every one of the players scored runs against the West Indies, but did they when it mattered? Oliver Davies scored a paltry 46 runs for the tournament @ 9.2, he never played the nationals, and was selected solely because of "promise". He was selected at the expense of others who did score runs at the nationals.

Every time CA threw money in what ever form at these current U19 players, Oliver Davies has been the fortunate player to be the recipient of those opportunities where as others have always missed out.

Want to know why we have batting problems currently in Australia? Those that have proven themselves at Nationals are now brick layers or car mechanics and Australian cricket becomes reliant on the hope that these players like Oliver Davies come good. Will he play for Australia? Most probably but that is because of default not talent, the talented players have been overlooked once again and history tells us most will no longer play cricket.

If Oliver Davies can score runs against the West Indies then there are many that will score more runs than what Davies did and that is exactly what happened. Liam Scott scored 66, Lachlan Hearne scored 58, but the classic example is Cooper Connolly, someone who did perform at the Nationals, was never selected in any of the lead up matches, until we were knocked out, he scored 64. He should have played instead of Oliver Davies and we may have beaten the West Indies in the rounds, finished on top of our division and may be playing India in the final, after all you can't do much worse than Davies first ball duck against WI. 

Oliver Davies is exactly what the article flyslip posted is talking about. And for how many years now Baggers have I been saying exactly what the article suggested, I'm just glad that someone in the media had the guts to call it.

Again you are showing reverse bias over the fact Oliver Davies happens to hail from south of your border Mike. Davies deserves to have been picked  for the WC as he has the record at underage level. He never got into second gear during the WC as the bloke had played little cricket for the preceding months. So there is an valid argument that he shud not have been chosen. But CA knows what this talent can produce. You do recall me telling you that he is the only batsman to score a white ball double century at an Under 19 nationals. That cud well be a cross he carries with him thruout his career. People will always be looking for him to replicate that. My point is he had runs on the board, credit in the bank to warrant his selection. 

I agree with Greg Chappell that development of the promising young cricketer is paramount but not putting him up against the lions before he is ready. I also agree with the scribe that the bloke performing now has to take precedence over the next big thing. We both know that better performed players were left behind for the WC. CA preferred taking three blokes that had played state cricket.. in Fraser -Mac, Liam Scott and Mack Harvey. All three performed below expectations.

I digress.. the young, promising cricketer has to have a solid apprenticeship before being given a free ticket for state level cricket. Cricket NSW erred by not giving Jason Sangha more time in Underage and Seconds cricket before giving him a state contract. Ditto with Jack Edwards and plenty before these two.. Those contracts shud've been handed to Henry Hunt or Macalister Wright or Lawrence Neil-Smith rather than leaving the door open for other states to poach them. These three wanna play cricket but they also need to make a living from it. When SACA and TCA bosses start waving state contracts at them.. they have no choice other than to accept. 

What about the autocratic ICC. The Banglas pull off a boilover in the WC so instead of cutting the victors some slack and slapping them over the wrists.. ICC has whacked major penalties on five players. Hell these blokes were only showing elation at defeating India for what I imagine is the first time in any format in some time. Even if they went a little over the top.. they deserved to not be penalised for it.

Bangladesh had won the U19 world Cup 2020 title from India. 
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