Australia no chance to regain Ashes: Gatting

Craig, I am glad you are not a selector :)

I'm not crowing about it, I know that it didn't mean much and that England did the whole complete team change at half-time. It is one of the problems with having a foreigner as coach though, that they don't understand that while it's just a meaningless friendly, the fact that it's England v Australia gives it instant meaning and there is no way England supporters would want to risk losing to Australia in football. But those times are gone now. 10 years ago Australia was very competitive against a lot of the top European nations in football. I can't imagine that we'd come close to any of them now. We may get back there in the future. I think the A-League is working well at bringing young kids through playing for a couple of years and then having them sign contracts in Europe. In another 10 years we might be back to being very competitive in Football again.

That's okay, it's only a single T20 before the ODI's start, and he's only in the T20 squad. The state one dayers will still be happening at that time, so he'll be back from India in time to play all the Shield matches that lead up to the first test.

I didn't argue against myself. I basically said they chose the best according to form. The fact that they haven't been all that good either has been because their form, while relatively good compared to their competition, still isn't setting the world on fire. Picking the guy averaging 40 over the guy averaging 35 is picking on form as much as picking the guy averaging 60 over the guy averaging 50. But it's not going to get you as good a result, because the quality just isn't there.

It is one of the joys of cricket. It is completely unpredictable. A game can turn in a single partnership or a single bowling spell.

ChrisUK - Pitches didn't turn any more when Shane Warne played, he just spun the ball a lot more. Even being a commentator in the ashes just gone he did some bowling in the nets that came up as over 2700rpm, and I'd say that would be significantly down on his peak playing days. Swann gives it a good rip for a finger spinner, but it's not even close. Warney would have had 1000 test wickets if Australia prepared pitches for him. South Africa last year the pitches were fine and pretty normal. The biggest thing there was Steyn was way below his best in those first couple of tests. His pace was down, there was little aggression. Can't blame that on the pitches. If anything, Australia probably would have done better if there was a bit more in the pitches. Maybe against South Africa they need to prepare the pitches more like South African conditions. Since readmission SA has beaten Australia in series in Australia but never in series in SA. Quite strange really. Anyway, I've never said that the English were doctoring pitches. The main comments suggesting the pitches were different to normal English pitches were coming from English players and commentators, including comments from Cook suggesting that preparing pitches specifically to suit Swann was their perogative, and things like that. Whether they did that or not, or if it was just more of a reflection of recent weather, probably only the ground-staff know. The weather is certainly the main difference in the last few seasons Australian pitches. Last year was a pretty dry summer, so the pitches were a bit on the dryer side, the couple of years before were quite wet summers and we had some much greener pitches. I believe this is shaping up as a hot, try summer, so if Swann gets a chance to bowl on day 4-5 very often then he could find a lot of crumbling pitches to his liking.

England drew with Brazil in the Maracana in June. It's always amusing that the friendly ten years ago gets dragged up. The manager Eriksson replaced pretty much the entire team at half time, it was a joke match to him. England fans were absolutely livid, because we knew perfectly well that the dopey Swede gifted a game he didn't care about (result wise) in the slightest to a team who we knew would crow about it for - well a decade.

Which was the case in this series too. Saying Australia could have won one or two, or that England played poorly and still won is equally pointless. It was what it was. And we don't know how this one will pan out. Sure, England are stronger and should win - but cricket ain't like that.

ChrisK you're dreaming. Pitches used to turn when Warne played, and now don't. You prepared graveyards last year to nullify South Africa's quicks. It's called home advantage and there's nothing wrong with that. Not using Perth against India just shows that money trumps cricketing sense, nothing else. But every time I see this line about England doctoring pitches, there follows a claim from someone that Australia doesn't do it. It is utter drivel, you do.

"There simply haven’t been the in-form batsmen to choose from." If that staement is true then logically it is also true that they are not picking in form batsmen. You argued beautifully against yourself with that one Chris :)

Maddinson is going to India to jjoin the T20 team. I hope they don't see him as a test player as the last thing he needs is to be encouraged to swing at everything.

Did someone mention run rate? http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=2004 LMAO Who is scoring at 4 RPO? http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=2001 What about this test, who has the better run rate? http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=2007 Australia will not win a test and will have an INFERIOR run rate (maybe the 1 innings from 10 that Warner fires may be an exception).

It's ours at the moment and harking back to glories past is an act of desperation...let's keep it in the here and now

I'm sure England wouldn't have lost 6-0 to Brazil if they'd played them in that friendly. Australia beat England last time they played in football, but it was a friendly and was ages ago, the team has changed a lot since then. Without some serious improvement over the coming months it's hard to see Australia playing anywhere near as well as the last two world cups.

Going on what exactly? Can't be based on their FC record, as they both smash him on that basis.

That's good. Don't want to see Maddinson going to India. Someone like Fergusson who should be no chance of playing the Ashes is a much better person to send there. Let Maddinson and all the other realistic Ashes hopefuls stay in Australia to get some FC cricket.

Australian sporting stocks started dropping the moment most areas of Australian sport started getting sponsored by Swisse Vitamins. Simple way to fix Australian sport is simply to ban any Australian sports man or woman from taking or endorsing Swisse and we'll see an instant turn-around overnight! Well, maybe it'll take longer than overnight. It might take a bit longer than that for the stuff to get out of their system, and if they've shot ads recently they might not be able to get them removed from all advertising instantly.

I don't know where people keep getting this line of not picking batsmen who are in form. I'm guessing you'd also say that they never should have picked Phil Hughes, despite the fact that he was picked in the Australian team again because at the time he was leading the sheffield shield run scorers list. ie He was the most in-form batsman at the time. The one exception to that might have been Smith who was initially picked in India not necessarily on form but because it was felt he was one of the few Aussie batsmen who could play spin well. And that's proved a reasonable selection. The issue hasn't been them not picking the in-form batsmen, but rather that they've not have a plethora of riches to choose from. There simply haven't been the in-form batsmen to choose from.

@James: It's not an unreasonable argument to say that England won and yet have a lot of areas they can improve, but then, the Aussie players also have lots of areas in which they can improve to. So really, when it comes down to it it's not so much about "England won while not playing well, so they can improve a lot and will crush Australia", as much as it being about which side will realise more of the potential improvement in their game going into the next series.

I agree about the pitches. Slow, low pitches are never good for a spectacle, regardless of whether it suits your team or not. Hopefully the Aussie pitches this summer will be up to the standard we expect of them here. The one big advantage of the faster, bouncier pitches is they tend to give both sides the chance. With pace and bounce the fast bowlers have something to work with if they bowl well, but it also can really aid quick scoring, so if the bowling is a bit off then it gives the batsmen a real good chance of making big scores. All good for exciting cricket. England definitely have the edge, especially in experience and the ability to win "the big moments", but the Aussies showed at many points during the last series that there is a lot of quality there just searching for consistency, and if they are able to find it they could make it a very competitive series.