Tasmania University Cricket Club

Latest News (21st. August 2007)

Hilfy elbows his way into Australian Twenty20 World Championship squad.

Ben Hilfenhaus has been included in Australia’s 15 man squad which will compete at the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in September.

Shaun Tait has been withdrawn from the squad due to a dodgy elbow and the Australian selectors will seek ICC approval to draft Hilfy into the squad. This will be Hilfy’s first full tour with the Australian cricket team and he will benefit tremendously from the experience. In many ways it will be a daunting experience for Hilfy as bowlers tend to be little more than ‘window dressing’ in Twenty20 cricket and, more often than not, ‘go the distance’ in order to keep the crowds happy. Boundaries tend to keep crowds more entertained than wickets falling. Still, knowing Hilfy, he is likely to buck convention and continue to impress all and sundry with his outswing bowling and variations.

Hilfy has recently spent some time at the Centre of Excellence working on his stock ball and also his ‘bag of tricks’. The word on the street is that he has developed a new delivery that he may test out at the Twenty20 World Championship. When pressed on the details of his new delivery at the launch of the T.U.C.C. Scholarship recently Hilfy remained tight-lipped. “I’m not at liberty to speak about that right now”, he replied bluntly.

Although Twenty20 cricket has only been on the scene for a short time Hilfy has already established his credentials as a Twenty20 cricketer. He has been a part of very successful Twenty 20 teams and his figures in Twenty20 cricket are exceptional.

The TCA Twenty20 competition has been running for two seasons now and University has played in both finals. We won the inaugural title in the 2005/2006 season defeating Glenorchy in the final at University and were runners-up in the 2006/2007 season losing to South Hobart-Sandy Bay at Queenborough. Hilfy has been a pivotal member of those campaigns

Last season Tasmania played in the final of the interstate Twenty20 competition and lost to Victoria at the MCG. Although Hilfy didn’t play in the final, due to national duties, he played a major role in getting Tasmania into the final. He has played 5 matches for Tasmania and taken 8 wickets at an average of 13.00 with an economy rate of 6.35. His best figures are 3 for 17.

Hilfy impressed the Australian selectors in all forms of the game last season and it was only a matter of time before he played for his country. His first game for Australia was a Twenty20 international match. Hilfy made his Twenty20 debut for Australia against England at the SCG on the 9th January 2007. He bowled 4 overs and finished with figures of 2 for 16. He claimed the wickets of Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood and Australia won the match comfortably.

We wish Hilfy all the best at the tournament. No doubt many of us will be quite bleary-eyed during September as we will be staying up late (or getting up very early) to watch Hilfy play.

The Twenty 20 World Championship starts on 11th September and concludes with the final to be played on Monday, 24th September at the New Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg.

Australia play their first group match against Zimbabwe on the 12th September at Newlands, Cape Town starting at 1600 GMT (2:00 am EST!). The second group match is against England at Newlands on the 14th September.

There are media releases on the Cricket Australia and Baggygreen websites.

As soon as the series starts we'll add a link or two and watch the Haus's progress.


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