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Michael Hussey's Postcards |
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SUNDAY 24 DECEMBER 2000
Mike Hussey on the events that might help turn Western Australia's summer
The Western Warriors have finally got an outright win on the board with a morale-boosting result against the NSW Blues at the WACA last week. It is a win that will give our squad a lot confidence going in to the second half of the season.
In a match dominated by the bowlers, Tom Moody was probably the difference between the two teams, with an inspired spell of bowling at the end of the second day. He took five for twenty-eight as we bowled the Blues out for 130 in their second innings. The successful return of Marcus North to the team was a huge bonus. He was the top scorer in the match with 47 runs in the first innings. The conditions were very tough and he handled them better than many of his more experienced counterparts. Marcus has been in great form in grade cricket and second XI matches and thoroughly deserves his recall. He looks a class act and has a big future in WA cricket.
Earlier this month, Tom Moody announced he would be retiring from first-class cricket at the end of the season to take up a coaching post at Worcestershire in England. He has signed a three-year contract with the English county and will be sorely missed by the Warriors. His experience and leadership qualities will not be replaced easily, if at all. Big Tom has had a remarkable career, with more than 120 first-class games for WA, 8 Test matches and a decade of English county cricket. He has the most runs for WA, the most matches, most Shield wins, most hundreds in Shield Finals (and is the only player to score over 150 in each innings of a Shield Final), most one day matches for WA, and the most wickets and runs for WA in one-day cricket. The guys are very keen to send Moods out with a bang. We would dearly love to win the Pura Cup and/or the Mercantile Mutual Cup for Tom. The respect he has in WA is enormous and I'm sure after his experiences in England he will be back in WA in some coaching capacity.
It has been a while since my last article and there has been plenty action to report. We have played one-day games against South Australia and Tasmania and Pura Cup matches against Tasmania and NSW (the latter twice).
Our trip to Tasmania brought some excellent cricket matches. We began the tour with a 'bad shirt' night. Every one on the trip had to bring a 'bad shirt'. All the names went into the hat and you had to draw out the name of another player and provide him with your shirt to wear for the night. Unfortunately for Kade Harvey, I drew his name out of the hat and he was issued with one of my Dad's bright yellow safari shirts. I had to wear a pyjamas top provided by Brad Hogg. Some of the other funny ones included BIG Jo Angel trying to fit into one of the TINY Mark Walsh's terrible shirts and our coach Wayne Clark in a skin tight pink 'G'day from WA' T-shirt. We had a great night and heaps of fun before the hard work of the next five days of cricket.
The one-day match was a very close game that saw Tasmania needing four runs from the last ball to win. Damien Martyn kept his cool with the ball to deny Tassie and we won a very hard fought match. The Pura Cup game started the next day and Tassie batted very well and piled on the runs. Big Tom decided to declare behind the Tigers in an attempt to set up a run chase on the last day. As it turned out we needed 387 off seventy-one overs to claim maximum points. Simon Katich and Damien Martyn put together a wonderful partnership that saw us in with a real chance at tea on the last day. After tea, an inspired spell of bowling from David Saker saw the game also go down to the last ball, with Tom Moody playing out the last over to avoid defeat as we fell fifteen runs short. It was a good chase but we left Hobart disappointed about not taking six points.
Our next match was against NSW at the very picturesque North Sydney Oval and we played excellent cricket all game and got ourselves into a position where we needed just 140 odd in the last innings to win the match. We crumbled to be all out for 89 in our second innings to lose the game after dominating most of the match. It was an innings we would rather forget.
The Warriors' most recent one-day game was against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval. The Redbacks made a pretty solid 260 in their innings. We were confident of reaching the target as the pitch was sensational for batting and we had the likes of Adam Gilchrist and Justin Langer back in the side. The Redbacks bowled with a lot of discipline early and had us behind the 'eight-ball' with twenty-five overs to go. A great innings from Gilly got us back in the match as he smashed 46 off thirty-odd balls. In another game that went right down to the last delivery, this time the result was different and the Redbacks won by just a handful of runs.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and to let you know that I will be back in the New Year with more stories about what is happening in the Warriors' camp.
All the best
Mike Hussey
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