SA honours for cricketer Ashley
The all-rounder has proven to be a key player in the team.
ASHLEY Lombard (31) has been chosen for the South African indoor cricket team, after a tournament held in Lichtenburg recently.
In typical understatement, he felt he had played ‘quite nicely’.
He averaged 18 runs a game and was useful with the ball.
Perhaps his greatest asset to any team is his skill as the wicketkeeper.
He bowls left arm, but bats right handed.
The rockets he can launch with that powerful left arm certainly make opposition batsmen run at full speed when he is keeping – and hop around at the crease when he is bowling.
As a youngster, Ashley was a tearaway fast bowler, something similar in attitude and even action to Australia’s Mitchell Johnson.
However, now that he has crested the 30 year-old mark, he admitted that his pace had ‘slowed down a bit’.
Not that it’s military medium, by any stretch of the imagination.
“I bowl a ‘heavy’ ball. I bowl over the wicket and try to keep it just short of a length, on the hips, or get it to cut away,” he said.
Ashley usually bowls over number four, and then does the finishing, bowling what is usually a pressure-packed final 16th over.
For those not familiar with the game, indoor cricket is played by eight people per team, with an innings 16 overs long. Four batting pairs bat for four overs. Each player must bowl two overs.
He enjoys the game because it’s fast and there’s always something happening.
“I can get bored quickly (in outdoor cricket) but with this game you are always in the game, every ball counts,” he said.
As the ‘keeper this is even more so.
When it comes to batting, he likes to open the batting and get the team off to a fast start. It’s very different to outdoor cricket in that the ‘down-up’ shot is very fruitful when it comes to indoor cricket.
Played firmly into the ground so that it shoots up into the roof, it’s a shot that accumulates runs with minimal, or no, risk of being run out.
Elegant cover drives may be great for test cricket, but inside, they’re bound to get you run out.
“If you hit the ball, you have to run, so straight drives aren’t ideal. You might get away with it in lower leagues, but not at this level,” said Ashley.
“The game has changed and evolved to make it more exciting,” he said.
Later in the year the SA indoor team will play against the SA action cricket team, so he is looking forward to that.
