With wet weather restricting the action in England, there were only two County Championship centuries this week. That just makes it more surprising that there were two scores of 99 and one of 98! The unlucky trio of Westwood, Patel and Hildreth also fail to make my team of the week. Instead my opening batsmen come from the IPL. Virender Sehwag has largely been living off past glories for a while now but, with a place in the final at stake, the old Viru returned to the fore. Against CSK, the Kings XI star plundered 122 from 58 balls, 96 coming from boundaries. Rajasthan's teenage wicketkeeper Sanju Samson also produced a brilliant 74 in 47 balls against Mumbai Indians.
Sehwag's innings had to be special to outshine Suresh Raina's scintillating response of 87 in 25 balls for the Super Kings. All bar three came in fours and sixes, and 33 runs were thumped from a single seven-ball over (including a no-ball) by Awana before it took a brilliant piece of fielding from George Bailey to run him out.
Back now to the Championship for the next selections. Will Porterfield's 118 for Warwickshire against Somerset was his first with the red ball for his county while Gordon Muchall's unbeaten 158 in Durham's draw against Notts was the top score of the week. Two Glamorgan players vied for the number six position, and I've plumped for Jim Allenby's all-round consistency over Chris Cooke's two lively performances in the Championship and T20 Blast.
Tom Smith struck 54 and claimed 5-49 in the otherwise damp and dismal Roses contest, folowed by a 27-ball 54 as Lancashire's T20 opener, enough to make my Eleven. The contrasting ODIs between England and Sri Lanka witnessed several excellent bowling displays. Principal amongst them was Chris Jordan's 5-29 at Old Trafford where the home team dismissed SL for their third lowest ODI score ever. Fortunes had been reversed just a few days earlier. In chilly Chester-le-Street, Dilshan scored 88, Kulasekera took 3-15 but spinner Sachithra Senanayake trumped the lot with his mean 4-13 to complete England's misery. He has accumulated some pretty decent career stats over the years, particularly in limited overs formats, but will surely add to his single Test appearance.
My final two choices are Junaid Khan and Gareth Batty. The Pakistani aggregated 7-33 in Lancashire's two T20 victories and certainly doesn't deserve to be ignored in favour of some England has-been called Flintoff when he makes his debut, as he surely must, if only to attract more through the turnstiles next week. I'm no fan of Batty's spiky on-pitch demeanour, as illustrated by his aggression against Somerset last summer. However, 8-68 for Surrey against Essex was the bowling performance of the week.
