When one is confronted with a brick wall and is given the simple direction of getting to the other side, several options spring to mind immediately.
The first, and most obvious for the thick-headed among us, is to use our best asset: our thick head.
Surely, by battering the wall, three bricks deep, with our skull for long enough we could just batter down the wall. Several mild concussions later we could simply stroll over the other side, dust off our hands and be done.
Other options, of course, relate to things like walking around the wall, going over the wall, and using loop, spin, drift and guile to coax the wall from its crease so our wicketkeeper can whip the bails off and the wall must begin the long trudge back to the pavilion.
These are options that don’t come to mind so readily as atrium-breaking headbuttery, but are all options worth exploring nonetheless.
The point of this horrifically mixed analogy, if you hadn’t gathered it already, is that the Aussie cricket selectors got our strategy brilliantly and shockingly wrong for the first Test match against India.
So despite our insistence that pace is our strong point and spin our weakness, both in batting and in bowling, sometimes you can’t fight the conditions.
Nathan Lyon, despite going past two hundred, and not in a good way, at least had three poles to show for it.
James Pattinson bucked the trend, but we have to say now that we are looking at a kid who is going to be a serious stalwart in the Aussie team for a long time. I’m going to call it early on Pattinson: he will be one of the greats.
Not only is his action extremely smooth and his approach to the crease powerful yet stable, but he has that trait that is so revered in the best quicks: he simply hates batsmen.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; he hates their essence, their soul, their very reason for existence. As such, he will take wickets on the most docile of tracks, simply because every ball is bowled either with the intention of taking a wicket, or building up to the ball that will take the wicket.
And these two are our only locks for the next Test’s attack.
Right now it is the selectors job to look at the other two quicks and figure out which, if any, should keep their spot. The options are many, but realistically not as plentiful as we would like.
Doherty must play the next game, despite the Indian lineup being bereft of left-handers. He will add variety, and hopefully the tracks will lend him the spin that he doesn’t get with the white ball in Australia.
Somewhat like Ashwin, Doherty concentrates on sidespin, and hopefully he will profit from this in the conditions.
If he doesn’t, we know that he has another gear; a run-saving gear. At the very least this will be useful when chaps like Dhoni decide to mount the slogging horse.
What does this mean for Siddle and Starc? Realistically, at least one of them has to make way.
Henriques, rightly or wrongly, commands selection for the next game on the strength of his batting alone.
While he didn’t prove he could do the job with the ball that Shane Watson did in 2010, he did nab a wicket later in the innings and looked as much of a threat as Siddle or Starc.
Another option is to bring back our most effective bowler from the 2010 series in India, Mitchell Johnson.
Johnson has a good bouncer and is genuinely fast, things that Pattinson profited from in the Chennai Test. He can also reverse swing it away from righties from around the wicket, which is perhaps his most dangerous weapon.
In my view, gambling on Johnson for some menace and wicket taking potential, and Doherty and Henriques for some sanity, might just be the way to play these conditions.
It’s certainly better than banging the ball in on a length to be picked off for singles to deep point.
And far better than bashing one’s head against a brick wall.
Follow Paddy on Twitter @WarmingthePine
Joshua James
Roar Rookie
Agree with the writer here. Johnson,Pattionson,Lyon and Doherty should be our bowling attack.
Scifi
Guest
Onboard with this. Xavier in for Sids and I would swap Johnson for Starc. I also think Watson should go home now and Khawaja in but that is another debate. Watson is good against pace and we won't see much of that in India. We need to win tests. If we had another spinner then they would be ahead of Xavier. Smith is not good enough and Maxwell (his bowling is behind xavier's). Henriques has his spot based upon two gutsy batting efforts and his bowling which was ok.
St Mark W
Guest
I do think there is an over reaction to the result.In the end, the main difference between the two sides was Dhoni's wonderful innings. The match selection contention had a lot to do with whether to emphasise your strengths or cover your weaknesses. For the first test they emphasised strengths and lost so the question is was the loss bad enough to change strategy The secondary issue is the NSP's squad selection policy. Can anybody explain it to me? I would argue that when in doubt go with recent form, as shown by statistics for the last couple of seasons, and the NSP don't generally appear to be doing this. SOK is the most obvious example of where this is not occurring because he has the best form (stats) of all spinners in the Sheffield Shield over the last few Sheffield Shield seasons.
sheek
Roar Guru
Why is it the selectors fault? There is this assumption that the players always play to their ability, but the selectors can never pick the right team. We need a second spinner? Why? Just to satisfy our sensibilities? We don't have any spinners after Lyons, who isn't top drawer himself. And you can't blame that on the selectors. What has to happen between the first & second test is that the Aussie players - both batsmen & bowlers - have to learn how to play Indian conditions. Half a dozen personnel changes won't change much. But a change in attitude & approach may help wonders.
matt h
Guest
Pretty much agree, except that a 2nd spinner is needed. Doherty as the best available in the touring squad should replace Siddle. I would be inclined to pick Johnson ahead of starc for the extra bounce, stamina and 5km of pace, but I'm not desperate for it. come to think of it, if Johnson is not in the frame, then Doherty comes in for Starc, not Sidds.
buddha9
Guest
but once again its the old pluck a magic rabbit out of the hat trick -- david lord is running round saying put this player on the plane after 2 games!! hoping everything will be alright -- SOK hasn't played test cricket --who's to reallly say he'd be better than whats there? its a guess and the blogs on Roar are full of people guessing and all guessing different --everyone asserts this guy is better than that guy till they're blue in the face -- mind you the selectors look like they're guessing as well -- but so many guesses on so many different people means there aren't any easy answers -- no matter who they pick everyone is as inexperienced as everyone else which is my point: they're learning as a team -- bad situation i'm sure you'd agree -- my advice for what its worth is to at least give the team a chance to learn rather than chopping and changing during a series -- don't get me wrong there's a few players in the current 11 i don't rate but chopping changing , dropping four players for this match, four for the next, its a recipe for disaster. - i saw that policy happen in the 80's -- didn't work then won't work now -- And in the end they'll do what i'm saying anyway, settle on a team and stick to it --
Antony Henry
Guest
Well written. Much better than the crap being written by many so called "sports commentators".
jameswm
Roar Guru
I don't agree with this: "there’s no replacements who are better" If SOK was over there, he'd be slotted straight in to the 2nd test. It's almost a crime that they didn't select him in the 17-man squad. With all those right-handers, he'd have been ideal. Mind you, it would help to have a keeper who can effect a stumping.
buddha9
Guest
Its a no brainer this — the team aren’t good enough, there’s no replacements who are better, they’re all learning together which is the worst situation to be in and 380 batting first in india is a well below par score. blaming Cowen’s dropped catch and all the rest is superficial and nonsensical — The fact that every blog about the team brings forth a 100 different suggestions regarding who should be in and who should be out tells its own story — there isn’t an easy answer. I’d make a few small tweaks: another spinner, ( but really xavier doherty? Please) still you need two spinners — drop siddle who has a big heart but nothing much else and bring in Usman for Hughes who is not a test batsman and never will be no matter how many runs he scores against custard pie attacks — maybe if Usman grew a beard he’d get into this team — the players need to learn patience at the crease henriques showed what needs to be done and how — Warner needs to stop sticking his bat way out in front of his pad ( it’ll ruin him in england as well) and play with softer hands but really aussie cricket fans they have no patience themselves and they want it to be like it was 7 years ago and it can’t be and won’t be — dave lord typifies this attitude: pick this bloke he had a good game last week, stick him on the plane, its called clutching at straws and its a very bad look for someone as old as he is – any case there will be four or five years of this before the team learn so you better get used to it.