Sunday 11th October 2009
Joyce ready to shuffle batting
Sussex Sharks captain Ed Joyce indicated a shuffle of the line-up was in order for their next match against the Diamond Eagles.
Joyce indicated a shuffle following their Airtel Champions League Twenty20 defeat against the New South Wales Blues on Sunday.
Blues through as Sharks fall short
Sussex crashed to a 35-run defeat in Delhi, the batting failing to chase down NSW's target of 131 on a slow and low pitch.
NSW too had struggled at the start of their innings, but Phil Hughes anchored the innings with a painstaking 62, while Moises Henriques - promoted up the order ahead of captain Simon Katich - weighed in with a knock of 51 off just 33 deliveries.
Sussex's response began badly with Brett Lee sending back Joyce in the first over and later, Henriques took three for 23 as the county side eventually finished with 95 for eight.
Sussex now need to beat South Africa's Diamond Eagles to progress to the second round and Joyce believed his batsmen needed to step up their performance.
"This is a massive tournament"
"The Diamond Eagles played here the other day and got 90-odd as well," Joyce said.
"So I think both teams will be looking at their batting line-up. This is a massive tournament for club teams and Twenty20 seems the way forward now.
"It's great to be out here and it would be good to beat the South African team on Tuesday and stay involved. It's a winner-takes-all situation and we would be gunning for that."
Joyce, who was due to play for Middlesex last year in the Champions League which was later postponed due to the terrorist strike in Mumbai, was handed the captaincy just hours before the match after Michael Yardy was ruled out due to illness.
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Joyce added: "I think Henriques was the difference between the two sides.
"We fell short by 30-odd runs and Henriques got 50 of them off just 30-odd balls so he deserves the credit. Both teams struggled out there and the new ball just skidded on quite low.
"I think we certainly need to hit more boundaries and that's one area we need to improve on."
Katich was pleased with the way his team had performed.
"Our top order guys Hughes and Henriques were brilliant under pressure and so was David Warner," he said.
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"Lee was outstanding with the ball up front and the others chipped in beautifully, especially our young leg-spinner Steven Smith.
"We wanted to make sure we had a left hand-right hand combination throughout the innings.
"Moises had batted beautifully in the first game and I thought he was a good option to stir things up rather than have two left-handers. It worked very well for us.
"It was a big advantage having played here the other day because you know what to expect as a batting unit and with the ball as well.
"It's fantastic to go through the second round and that's what we wanted to achieve but we have got a lot of hard work ahead of us."
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