James Benning wasn't due to appear in this segment for another couple of days, but we've bumped him up because he seems very relevant today.Half of England's problems during the World Cup seem to have stemmed from their ponderous approach at the start of the innings. Obviously Marcus Trescothick is the man most missed, but even with his inclusion, there'd still be two sedentary batsmen to one enforcer. We'd like to reverse that ratio in time for the next World Cup (Ian Bell would be the surviving plodder).
So then: James Benning. He's 23. He opens the batting and he loves - just adores - scoring quickly. He's hit four first-class hundreds in 20 matches and he scores at 81 runs per hundred balls. To reiterate, that's in four day cricket. That's about the speed Ricky Ponting scores in one-day internationals. He's only hit the one one-day hundred, but it was 189 not out off 146 balls.
Other Ones To Watch in 2007
Spot on about James Benning; Sunday's record was a case in point! Found a website (http://howzaat.pupheadsoftware.com/dataec/indexsurrec.html) with great coverage of Surrey’s record. It’s got the BBC commentary from the game, video highlights and an animated scoreboard with every shot from the game!
ReplyDeleteI was checking out www.cricketsreligion.co.uk, because they say that with only a completed, Excel spreadsheet, they can animate any match for free. They’re a not for profit and get sponsors to make a donation to pay for the back end stuff.