Where does Australian cricket currently stand?
Roar Rookie By Lachlan.Dyson, 1 Feb 2012 Lachlan.Dyson is a Roar Rookie
- Tagged:
- Australian Cricket, Ben Hilfenhaus, Cricket, James Pattinson, Pat Cummins, Peter Siddle, Ricky Ponting, Test cricket
Is this the beginning of a new, powerful era in Australian cricket, or instead the sad goodbye to a once tumultuous Indian cricket team?
There has been feverish talk by fans and experts alike of Australia having the best pace attack in the world and of our batsmen finally regaining some form of the past.
There is no doubt that the likes of James Pattinson and Pat Cummins look like exciting prospects for the future, while veterans Hilfenhaus and Siddle picked up a few extra yards of pace as they continuously skittled the frail Indians.
Ricky Ponting has rediscovered the form that entitled his legend status to begin with. He has amassed 544 runs this summer at an average of 108.8. This is to go with Michael Clarke’s 626 runs at a whopping 125.2.
But take a look back to the Ashes series last summer and we see Clarke with an average of 21.44, only able to amass 180 runs over five Tests against England. Ponting was worse, managing 113 runs at a miserly 16.14.
Siddle took 14 wickets at 34.57 while Hilfenhaus took seven wickets at almost 60 and was dropped before the end of the series.
One would be silly to suggest that if we played against England next week that the top performers of this summer would perform as they did against India.
India are weakened and the shoulders of Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid and Sehwag can no longer hold up the powerful reputation India once held.
Their bowling attack is flawed, they no longer have the first class spinner they once had and their pace attack lacks patience and a consistency required to play Test cricket.
It is been suggested that Dravid is to announce his retirement and if the failures continue Laxman, and dare I say it, Tendulkar will follow.
Without this legendary middle order, India will fall into the same predicament both the West Indies and Australia experienced, finding themselves lulling fourth or fifth in the test rankings with the public slowly losing interest.
Like any Australian I hope that this is the beginning of a new powerful era of Australian cricket, but before we can assume that this is the case, we must play against the top ranked side in the world and perform with the same success as we have seen this summer against a deteriorating Indian side.
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February 1st 2012 @ 10:21am
Matt F said | February 1st 2012 @ 10:21am | Report comment
We are improving. The fast bowling is the big area for this. regardless of who the opposition was you can see the improvement just by watching them. They bowl more full/good length balls and are trying to build pressure and get more swing. None of that really happened last summer. The batting is still an issue. Especially the lack of depth in case one or two of our regular top 6 get injured or lose form.
Yes India were poor, and beating them doesnt mean that getting back to number one is inevitable, but it also shows that England’s 4-0 win over India 6 months ago wasn’t that amazing either. England are still the best side in the world, but the gap isn’t as large as it looked 6 months ago.
February 1st 2012 @ 10:34am
Nate Hornblower said | February 1st 2012 @ 10:34am | Report comment
Excellent summation, the bowlers are much better than they performed during the ashes, bowling much better areas & doing more with the pill plus our depth is much deeper than last year. we hopefully have settled on our first choice spinner.
Our batting at the top of the order still has slight ?? but its a fairly clear pecking order, we just need a few of those guys to score more heavily at the domestic level to press their claims. Haddin will struggle to hold his spot with a number of quality contenders.
Overall, we are looking quite healthy but not ready to rest on our laurels, there is plenty of hard word ahead to maintain consistency, I think this team is finally getting that after our glory years passed us by.
I think there is a good core of quality with the coaches & the selection panel so we are well placed to give the no.1 ranking a shake by 2013.
February 2nd 2012 @ 8:38pm
aussie1st said | February 2nd 2012 @ 8:38pm | Report comment
Agree we will only know where we are at once we play SA and England. In the meantime we have to keep our standards high and not lose to teams we are expected to beat. Batting is definitely a concern, would love to have the depth we have in the bowling for batting.
February 3rd 2012 @ 12:42pm
Vas Venkatramani said | February 3rd 2012 @ 12:42pm | Report comment
Lachlan, you state that Australia’s bowlers wouldn’t do as well against the current English batting.
However, it does beg the question, would Alastair Cook have scored 766 Ashes runs against this year’s models of Australian bowlers? Probably not. I’d say Australia’s bowlers could add another 10-15 runs per wicket, and Cook would score about 200 less runs.
In short, if Australia bowl like this, then those 650-700 totals will become closer to 400-450. Game becomes closer, and a total of 300 odd becomes competitive rather than meek.
However, our worry is still the batting as is rightly pointed out. Warner needs to find a way to combat a noted weakness against right arm off spin (I predict many attacks will chance the new ball with spinners to try and remove Warner from now on), while Cowan needs to convert his starts. As for number 3, any takers?
February 8th 2012 @ 10:40pm
Drew said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:40pm | Report comment
Brilliant article Lachlan. Personally, if CA can manage our up and coming superstars there seems no reason that our bowlers can’t be world-beaters. But unless our batsmen can consistently bat well, and not just for one series, we’re going nowhere. Who do you think could potentially replace guys such as Ponting and Hussey?