The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

The Liebke Ratings: Sri Lanka vs Australia first ODI

Mitch Starc is the best bowler in the world right now.
Expert
22nd August, 2016
4

Australia had lost their number one Test ranking after being thrashed 3-0 by Sri Lanka. They’re still the number one ranked one-day team though, so they’ve now set about on a five-match series to see if they can lose that top spot too.

Here are the ratings from the first ODI.

Mitchell Starc
Grade: A

Like the bacterial predator bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, or the villainous Sylar from the television show Heroes, Mitchell Starc has augmented his already formidable bowling skills by apparently absorbing the powers of similar lifeforms around him.

In this case, his recently departed fellow Mitch, Mitchell Johnson.

Click here to re-live The Roar’s live coverage.

He was Australia’s stand-out bowler in the Test series and began the ODI series by taking the two wickets he needed to bring up the record for the fewest number of games to reach 100 wickets.

It’s about time too. For a haste-based record, he seems to have taken forever to finally knock this one off. It’s also a record that’s easy to phrase confusingly. There were claims that he was the fastest bowler to reach a hundred ODI wickets – news to Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar, I assume. Others referred to him as the fastest man to reach 100 wickets – although given enough time, I expect Usain Bolt could challenge him there.

Advertisement

Starc eventually took another Sri Lankan wicket in the innings to also bring up the record for fastest Earthling, man and bowler to reach 101 ODI wickets in the fewest and least many matches. Which was useful, because his fellow opening bowler, Josh Hazlewood, took 0-56 from his ten overs, continuing his wretched tour.

Has Hazlewood ever taken a wicket in any form of the game? It’s becoming increasingly difficult to remember. One for the historians to investigate, perhaps.

Wordplay
Grade: B

Sri Lanka eventually finished on 8-227 from their 50 overs, with Dinesh Chandimal once again holding the innings together, scoring 80 not out from 118 balls. Apart from Starc, James Faulkner was the other main wicket-taker of the innings, taking 4-38, including Thisara and Dilruwan Perera.

Kusal Perera had already been Starc’s first wicket, mostly, I assume, because Faulkner snaring a pair o’ Perera wickets scans nicely as a piece of wordplay. Whereas Faulkner taking a trio of Pereras works nowhere near as well.

Although if he had taken the third Perera wicket, perhaps ‘snaring a pair o’ Pereras plus a spare, despairing Perera’ might have worked?

We’ll keep it on file. Just in case.

Advertisement

Aaron Finch
Grade: B+

Oh, Aaron Finch. I’m honestly not sure what else you need to do to earn my respect as a batsman. I assume it’s possible. After all, I used to be similarly unconvinced by Starc as a bowler until he won me over by being consistently awesome over long periods of time. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Anyway, whatever Finch has to do to convince me, his innings of 56 from 46 balls wasn’t it. Despite the fact that it provided a strong foundation upon which captain Steve Smith and the rest of the batting line-up could build, ultimately cruising to victory with 19 balls up their sleeve.

Difficult to bat with 19 balls up your sleeve, of course. Messes up your timing like nobody’s business. But perhaps if Aaron Finch gave it a go, he’d finally earn my respect.

Worth a shot, surely.

Super Series
Grade: C

When England announced that they would make their Sri Lanka and Pakistan tours ‘Super Series’, in which points were tallied up over all three forms of the game (four for each Test, two for each ODI and T20) to determine an overall winner, most Australian fans snorted in predictable, Antipodean contempt.

Advertisement

“Stupid old England – always messing with things for no good reason like the good reason-less, stupid old English thing-messers they are,” was the general vibe.

But a quick count of the remaining games in this Sri Lanka tour and an impromptu tallying of the scores that would apply under a similar Super Series system reveals that Australia are now 12-2 down, with 12 available points remaining.

So credit where it’s due. The ECB are apparently onto something. Expect Cricket Australia to retroactively follow suit immediately.

The absence of Glenn Maxwell
Grade: F

But, of course, is there any point to any of this? Because the Australian selectors have inexplicably chosen to suck all the fun out of the white-ball games on this tour by dropping Glenn Maxwell from the squad.

We’re used to this kind of contempt in Test cricket – yet another reason why that form of the game continues to struggle to win new fans. But to not select Maxwell for the limited-over forms seems utter madness. It’s like making a Speed sequel without Keanu Reeves or listening to a word Ryan Lochte says. Sure, you can theoretically do it, but why on Earth would you bother?

On social media during the week, Maxwell was seen on top of a tank, wearing camouflage gear and a military backpack (worn on his front, of course). One assumes that he’s on the brink of launching a coup to take control of Australian cricket.

Advertisement

About bloody time, I say.

close