- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
It can’t get any worse for Australian sport, almost everywhere you look.
A short summary:
The Australian cricketers flogged by 347 runs at Lords.
Adam Scott lost the 2012 British Open with bogies on the last four holes, and he did the same last night only it was 13-14-15-16.
The Reds bowed out of the Super Rugby without a whimper against the Crusaders.
In a somewhat brighter note, the Brumbies fell over the line against the Cheetahs 15-13 to reach the Super Rugby semis.
But don’t get too excited about the Brumbies chances of proceeding any further after failing to score a try last night despite dominating possession, territory, and the rucks and mauls.
They meet the Bulls at Loftus at altitude next Sunday, without doubt the biggest ask in sudden-death provincial rugby.
And that will complete the Australian whitewash.
The biggest problem of the four is with Australian cricket, for so long the bastion and the benchmark of Australian sport.
But it’s only the top batting order that has to be fixed, the bowlers are holding their own – just.
Let’s look at the batting problems, and it starts with the openers, and Shane Watson, the enigma of the side.
He has talent despite the many barbs headed his way. But he keeps getting out leg before playing the same dumb one stride forward into the shot, and missing it.
At 35, Chris Rogers thoroughly deserved selection after a mountain of first-class runs, but he’s finding the extra step in pressure beyond him.
Usman Khawaja’s second dig half century at Lords is encouraging, and it’s high time the selectors gave him an uninterrupted run in a baggy green, and stop treating him as a revolving door selection.
Michael Clarke is without peer Australia’s premiership batsman, and there’s a lot to be said in favour of him taking over the premier No 3 batting berth.
The jury is still out on Phil Hughes, and Steve Smith, with David Warner languishing in Africa, for reasons only known to the selectors.
Weird.
If there’s one change needed in the Australian attack it’s Jackson Bird for James Pattinson who for some unfathomable reason has lost his way.
Bird is the most accurate of the entire pace attack, and must be given his chance to strut his stuff.
The selectors have shown commendable vision with 19-year-old left-arm spinner Ashton Agar, and must stick by him for the entire series.
He is a rare talent with bat, ball, and in the field – and will improve rapidly.
And the real bonus – he is actually enjoying the privilege of being an Australian cricketer.
Which brings Ewen McKenzie into the frame.
There hasn’t been one bright note in the way the Brumbies, Reds, and Waratahs, have played in their last Super games.
Yet those three sides will provide the vast majority of the Wallaby lineup for McKenzie’s first Test as coach against the All Blacks at ANZ Stadium on August 17, and a week later in Wellington.
McKenzie is facing exactly the same problems as his cricket counterpart Darren Lehmann – the obvious talent has gone missing in action with the fringe players well short of the mark.
So unless the rugby and cricket mojo isn’t found very quickly, we can expect more horrendous weekends like the last one.