December 7th, 2010, 08:56 AM | #101 |
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One difference is of course that it used to be Australia which had the world class spinner in Shane Warne-as long as he was around nothing was going to be a pushover. Now it's England with the world class spinner and given a few runs to bowl at is a real threat.He was beating the bat all the time , OK the odd loose ball went to the boundary but he got 5 for the tenth time in only 26 matches.
The other thing was that England made the most of all their chances. |
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December 7th, 2010, 09:02 AM | #102 | |
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Who'd have thunk it, an innings and 71 runs! Shame I didn't put money on it.
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December 7th, 2010, 10:01 AM | #103 |
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Good to see. It's great we got knocked down a peg or two....yet again. I'm sick of these useless patronising overpaid wankers and beginning to understand why everyone else doesn't like them. I know the selectors have to also be held accountable but as far as I can see when you are chosen to play for your country you have to make runs or take wickets. That includes you Ponting....probably the worst captain we've had since Kim Hughes.
I know a lot of people feel the same way and would be curious to know the attendance figures to these first two tests not counting the Barmy Armys overwhelming presence. |
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December 7th, 2010, 10:35 AM | #104 |
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Eelcat. "Punter" Ponting is a world class player. Who's good enough to play in any test team. He also captained Aus. to a 5-0 win over us the last time we were down under.
As for the rest of the team katich is a good quality player. Hussey has been Australia's best batsman so far. Clarke seems to be out of form. Dropping Hauritz was a huge clanger. Siddle had a good spell at the GABBA but, hasn't done much since. Watson & Harris could certainly do better. North who has the ability to be a good player might find his place in the side under threat. I think Doherty has just had a bad series, & that could see the end of his test career. Unless the selectors show faith in him. As for the rest who knows? |
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December 7th, 2010, 10:54 AM | #105 | |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkKDQp9BeQY Attendance will suffer if Australia are perceived to be too poor to compete on sporting terms with England, but the worst England team I ever saw in the field was poor David Gower's emasculated side in 1989, when Phil Newport and Neil Radford were selected to be our opening bowlers I watched every game on the TV, an act of great masochism I admit, but there was some superb cricket on display, though only on the part of the men in the baggy green caps. If you are a true cricket fan you have no choice but to watch because as well as being a sport, cricket is performance art. How much say does Ponting get in the selection? Australia used to be really odd that way, often not even asking the captain for his opinion but still expecting him to show confidence in and make the best tactical use of bowlers even if he was known to think they were crap and someone else should be there instead. Australia needs an effective bowling unit; Steve Waugh used to look like a genius but what he had was a fantastic bowling unit which he thoroughly understood and got the best from. I think Ponting is one of the greatest batsmen I have ever seen but only fair to middling as a captain, nothing like as good a captain as Allan Border, say. Yet people constantly carped about Allan Border's captaincy and said he was shit, all the time from 1985 through to 1988 when he was painfully resurrecting the fallen warrior of Aussie cricket, focusing in concert with the first really effective cricket academy on finding and training up the bowlers. Except for the antique Bob Holland, a freak survivor and last remnant of the 1960s era, when "leg spin" was still something people had vaguely heard of, Border didn't have a single spinner fit to be considered for test matches. Not one. At first he made do with the occasional tweakers of Keppler Wessels, who at least was a consumate professional and really concentrated on what he was doing. Then, when Wessels started to go all Protea again (actually that's a whole other story and a rather sweet one, part of the minor miracle of South Africa's return to the fold), Border decided that if he wanted a good job doing, he had to do it himself, and by sheer determined practise and focus turned himself from a part time leg break bowler into a high class spinner at test level, whilst still remaining the most effective and reliable left hand batsman of his era. David Gower was the best left hander, I would have crawled over broken glass to watch a David Gower century, but I would have picked Allan Border to bat for my life. Above all, Border was a fine captain, a man whose every action said "Listen to what I tell you; watch me do exactly what I just said; do exactly what you just watched me do; don't annoy me." Ponting will never be up to Allan Border's snuff as a captain but he is no Kim Hughes either. He won a lot of games when he had a good bowling unit to command; where he falls down, I think, is his failure to rise to the much crueller challenge of making the best of a weak bowling squad. Allan Border showed Australia how to deal with that one and in Ponting's shoes I would be actively seeking Border's advice.
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December 7th, 2010, 10:55 AM | #106 |
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This is certainly the most woeful and inept Australian attack that I,ve ever seen. As for Pontings captaincy, sure, he was a good captain when he had Warne, McGrath, and Lee. Now he has become horribly exposed by his duff bowlers. His batting has gone to pot as well. A few years ago he was the best in the world, now he cant get into double figures on wickets where even Alistair Cook is scoring centuries. He should step down immediately as captain and try to concentrate on what he used to be good at.
I can see England winning this series by 3 or 4 nil. They are by far the better side. |
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December 7th, 2010, 12:00 PM | #107 | |
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Craig McDermott: fantastic quick bowler but playing his first ever test matches with a handful of first class games under his belt, and he had to carry the whole attack. He was literally Allan Border's only attacking weapon and almost his only reliable line and length bowler. He was barely 19 years old and still learning not to run on the pitch. What he achieved that summer was almost incredible but scarcely got any recognition in the avalanche of negative publicity around Australia's poor performance overall. He had absolutely no support at all from his colleagues. Geoff Lawson: Fine bowler but he was carrying a serious back injury and frankly should not have been playing. He was totally ineffective. Geoff Thompson: He was a spent force years before 1985. He played in all the tests and never took a wicket. He regularly leaked over 5 an over. His presence told its own tale about the paucity of Australia's resources that summer. Bob Holland: Right-arm leg breaks, a finger spinner. He was the only Australian who turned a ball all that summer and was instrumental in their only win (at Lords, naturally) but he achieved little after that, partly because Border was forced to set extremely defensive fields due to the ridiculous leakage of runs from his seam attack, Thompson being the worst offender. Simon O'Donnell: strictly a trundler. Not a bad batsman actually, but more useful in limited overs cricket than in tests. Arguably he was a destitute man's Steve Waugh. Greg Matthews: Couldn't spin wool on a machine. In fairness, his style was much more effective on hard, bouncy Australian wickets. Murray Bennett: left arm orthadox spinner, great sunglasses but that's about all. Dave Gilbert: Right arm fast medium, piss poor in this series although I will admit he went on to be a very decent player in County Cricket. That was a lousy bowling squad, the saving grace of McDermott aside. However, if Australia had a 19 year old Craig McDermott right this minute, I bet a slightly different face of things would have been seen in England's second innings at the Gabba and this whole series would look rather different today.
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December 7th, 2010, 01:08 PM | #108 |
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The Australian attack now just looks ordinary and the batting will suffer when Hussey hangs up his gloves.
Australia has lost the services of three class bowlers and the replacements are little better than average at best. The batting is vulnerable and as good as Ponting has been, his age and time are against him. This has to be one of the poorest Aussie sides ever to walk onto a cricket field. |
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December 7th, 2010, 01:51 PM | #109 |
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Warne track
All cricket teams go through these phases. Australia are remarkable however. Their 'bad patches' are usually just that: 'patches'.
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December 7th, 2010, 02:17 PM | #110 | |
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England have done good this time but they aren't on easy street. Not quite.
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