All quiet on the cricket front

I hope you all had a good Christmas and are now ready for the fun and frolics of the New Year. Chez Peakfan that generally means staying up playing games until the early hours while listening to Jools Holland and consuming food and (largely) soft drinks.

There's certainly little in cricket to distract me from the family at the moment. I've continued to watch the Aussie Big Bash when I've had time and am increasingly of the impression that spinners, as Derbyshire found last season, often keep things tighter than the quicks. That is partly down to the fact that the quickest bowlers can just as easily go down fine for four off either edge as they can drop it into the blockhole or just short of a length. In the Big Bash I've seen some very quick and good deliveries from the likes of Tait, Rana Naved, Nannes, Edwards and Lee, but at the same time seen them top edged for fours and sixes. Such is the lot of the speed merchant, but a genuine quick does bring excitement to a game of cricket that quite often isn't there when the medium pacers are operating.

Part of the attraction for me is in the thought that perhaps one of these guys is Derbyshire's T20 target for 2012. For all the appeal of Steyn or Morkel, I don't see Cricket South Africa letting them play and potentially be injured before their national side tour England. All the other potential quicks are out there in Australia and I'm enjoying the game of "what if?" when the games are on. I have a day off on Friday (only because I'm working on Saturday...) and look forward to watching what promises to be a fascinating match between Melbourne Renegades and Sydney Thunder. The former have the formidably fast opening pair of Tait and Nannes, while the latter boast Fidel Edwards, who bowled some quick 88mph stuff in their last match.

Best of all, Tait and Nannes will be bowling at "our" Usman Khawaja and the quite remarkable Chris Gayle. I've watched cricket for 45 summers and don't think I've ever seen a player hit a ball so far, so often as the tall West Indian. People like Adrian Kuiper, Viv Richards, Ian Botham and Chris Wilkins were talented hitters, but Gayle is simply brutal. He is also better with age and seems more willing to bat it through than he was even two or three years ago. To average forty in T20 is spectacular and the only shame about the game is that Dave Warner is in the Australian Test side - unless their game finishes tomorrow, which it might. Gayle and Warner together could be quite something, though, like the partnerships between Ian Botham and Viv Richards used to be, they could be brief as they attempt to outgun one another.

Players like Gayle and Warner - even, believe it or not, our old friend Travis Birt - have made a difference thus far in the competition, simply because they bypass any field the opposition skipper cares to set by clearing the ropes. You can't set a field to stop someone like Gayle when he hits eleven sixes, as he did in the Thunders' game against the Adelaide Strikers in the last match. Likewise Birt and Owais Shah both hit three "maximums" as the Aussie commentators love to call them today and a successful side HAS to have one or two players who can be expected to do that. There's maybe not that much between a run-a-ball scoring rate and 1.5 - but you'll win more matches with the latter, for sure.

If I'm honest - and I'm never otherwise, or there's no point my doing this blog - I think a fast scoring bat will win you more T20 games than a bowler for one simple reason. He can face and affect up to 120 balls in the innings, where any bowler, no matter how good, can only determine the outcome of 24. Ain't no rocket science to the argument, although if your strike bowler removed the opposition hitter early in his spell, that one ball could be mighty useful...

I don't know who Derbyshire will end up with for the T20, but I look forward to finding out. And if Messrs Krikken and Grant between them could identify a fast-scoring batsman AND a strike bowler I think we would do much better than has historically been the case.

Not to mention filling those cracking seats in the stand and a good few more besides.