Team News:
New South Wales: Fresh from a crushing win over the Eagles, New South Wales will be walking out with a spring in their step for their match against Sussex. However, they must be wary of over-confidence, since in the previous match, their batting had a lot of scope for improvment. The scratchy form of their promising opening pair is something that needs to be looked at – while Phil Hughes didn’t last beyond the second over, David Warner played as if he was staking a claim for the Australian Test side. Simon Katich, though, led from the front and showed a fine aptitude for the format and for Indian conditions. With their bowling being their strength, the top three of Hughes, Warner and Katich will have to shoulder the batting burden to make it easier for the hitters down the order such as Henriques and Rohrer to have a good biff at the ball. The bowlers were simply outstanding and have ominously hit their stride in their very first match. New South Wales have a settled squad and will probably not look to experiment too much in this important match.
Sussex: England’s domestic Twenty20 champions come here straight after a great season and are not short of match practice. Having played together all this while, they come here as a settled side and captain Michael Yardy is hoping to get some help in acclimatisation from Indian import Piyush Chawla. The left-arm spinner, who is currently out of favour with the national selectors, would be aiming to come back into the limelight with good performances in this event.
Sussex also have England players Luke Wright and Ed Joyce, both of whom have international experience alongwith aggressive West Indian batsman Dwayne Smith adding to the side’s versatility. As such, Sussex is bound to be a much tougher proposition for New South Wales than the Eagles were, and the Australian side will be favourites only on paper for the match. Sussex will also be mindful of the fact that the winner of this match is likely to carry two points into the second round, since the Eagles are unlikely to make it.
Numbers Game:
147.2 – Luke Wright’s strike rate in Twenty20 games for Sussex. He has the highest strike-rate among all batsmen for Sussex.
1 – The number of Twenty20 matches Stuart Clark has played for New South Wales. He made his debut in the format for his state in the match against the Eagles.
Soundbytes:
“We do have a lot of international guys in our team but we don’t play as much Twenty20 cricket as England does. But to have Lee upfront and Stuart Clark, Doug Bollinger, Nathan Hauritz and David Warner with plenty of plenty of experience behind them it is always an advantage to us.” – Simon Katich
“Who knows maybe next time England tours I could be here as a journalist!” – Robin Martin-Jenkins of Sussex in a lighter vein, when asked about his famous journalist father, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, or CMJ as he is popularly known.
Teams:
New South Wales (From): Phillip Hughes, David Warner, Simon Katich(c), Moises Henriques, Ben Rohrer, Steven Smith, Brett Lee, Daniel Smith(w), Nathan Hauritz, Stuart Clark, Doug Bollinger, Aaron Bird, Simon Keen, Steve OKeefe, Dominic Thornely, Nathan Bracken, Brad Haddin
Sussex (From): Michael Yardy(c), Will Beer, Ben Brown, Piyush Chawla, Joe Gatting, Rory Hamilton-Brown, Andy Hodd(w), Ed Joyce, Chad Keegan, James Kirtley, Robin Martin-Jenkins, Chris Nash, Dwayne Smith, Luke Wright, Yasir Arafat
