When someone makes 329 not out, it is hard to escape the obvious. Great concentration and execution for so many hours by Hussey and Clarke, and so many lovely strokes. It was a treat.
I guess when you have been around as long as those guys, you want to cash in whenever you get a flat deck, and Ponting and those two did so very nicely.
The guys who faced the music early, Warner, Cowan and Marsh, will be spewing they could not combat the swing and movement off the track and the bounce that brought them undone. They would have cashed in later in their innings.
Haddin didn’t get to bat and I felt for him when he dropped Gambhir, but I have been advocating his demotion for over 12 months, and he still gets the nod every time.
That is patently wrong to me, and so are many of the hoary chestnuts produced by selectors.
They used to say that wicketkeepers were a protected species. Now it’s wicketkeepers and old guys, old guys like the selectors (and myself).
Maybe just as well the old guys were around, though you say, and I hear your logic. What has saved Hussey and Ponting has been their supreme fitness and mobility, their ability to adapt, their great inner strength, and their experience.
They could understand the public outcry at their retention, not that they ever accepted it. That is supreme testimony to their gutsiness. And it appears that both believe they have more than just 2012 in mind.
I think the guys in the 12 understand the privileged position they find themselves in, and they are all hard workers, so they deserve whatever opportunities come their way.
But there are at least 10, maybe more, guys outside the team who would walk in to other national teams, and they are posing a great and happy dilemma for Mickey Arthur’s men.
I have advocated Haddin and Lyon be rested, not dropped forever. They need to relearn their craft, or face the music in domestic cricket.
I still see no better spinners than Warne, Hauritz, and Beer, and one wicketkeeper who works his tail off is Matt Wade. Tim Paine will have to repair his finger.
If baseballers can play into their mid 40s, so can cricketers. It is purely mind over matter, and personal fitness.
I think we underestimate sometimes the steely qualities some of our backup cricketers have.
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