Forgotten Aussie quicks ready to press for World Cup contention

I reckon Muscles Marcus - even though Ronan effectively disagrees with me as to the 'type' of batsman he is - I think his batting will come good one way or another. In fact I'm basically convinced that out of the 6 bats and Carey we will be very unlikely to tank a whole batting innnings. Stoinis bowling is - and now I'm editorializing - total junk. Maxwell too. Much as I'll struggle to get support I am convincing myself more and more that we need to invest more heavily in legitimate bowling and just ride with fewer batsmen.

To Jeff Brian and anyone else who specifically replied to me Interestingly Lyon since the last world cup goes at a bit over 5 an over and strikes at 41 - I love him in test cricket and as a bloke but I suspect he isn't that much of an improvement on Zampa all things considered. The bowler who is 4th after Hazlewood, Cummins Starc, in game since the previous world cup is John Hastings. Goes at almost 5.5 an over (.1 of a run per over above average in that time) in 16 matches he strikes at 27 balls per wicket. Did he play some average teams in that time? In so many ways he would be the perfect player for thins line up. I gather he's retired now right? So total pipe dream but interesting nonetheless.

Is AJ Tye completely of contention? I'm surprised he is part of the squad but he must be there for some reason.

We’re running out of chances. We need to win as soon as possible. We heard it here first.

The aim from here on HAS to be getting 40 good overs from whom ever, based on opposition, pitch, ground & weather conditions on the day and of course, the opposition. We know we have a weakness at the number 5 bowling spot so the true bowlers have to step it up. We also know we aren't going to make 397 anytime soon, so the batsmen not only have to try and score as quickly as they can, but filed to their very best to reduce runs scored. I'd have no issues with your suggestion Jeff, if that was the best combination, in the eyes of Finch & the Oz brains trust, for this game. We MUST get creative, we simply don't have a great XI and that being the case, anything we can do (legally!!) to give us an edge is what should happen.

Don't f around with Soumya Sarkar. If Behrendorff opens to him he will smash him around Trent Bridge. But then again as a Bangladesh fan I wouldn't mind that

I still like length bowling on about 4th stump, but agree Finch needs to get creative with his fields. The Tigers want 4s and have run away shots to get off strike. Pressure bowling and good field placements to reduce or cut off those oportunities should hopefully do the trick. Otherwise it may be a case of trying to keeping it tight and waiting for the batsmen to make a mistake, not a very pro active strategy.

Hi Dwayne. He's not in the 15 man squad (ICC requirement is that a 15 man squad be submitted prior to WC and after that no changes are permitted unless substitution for a genuine - and ICC medically assessed and agreed - injury), so unless there is an injury (to any of the 15 man squad), he can't be brought in. As to why he's not in the squad in the first place, well that's a different discussion; basically he sustained a back injury in the new year and then lack of competitive matches thereafter saw him being overlooked for inclusion in the squad.

man what a sinner and a heretic

Nice work Nick. Have I missed the reasons explained why Hazlewood is not playing?

I'm not so sure that pacemen are the answer to Bangladesh Brian. I know it's counter-intuitive when playing a sub-continent side, but the Tigers late-play/power combo (though not discounting their ability to play the short ball comfortably - and powerfully) which gives them the ability to use the pace of the ball to clear the ropes when they are not deflecting down the leg side or late cutting behind square, leads me to think that Lyon/Zampa/Maxwell may be better than all out pace. I'm now thinking opening with Lyon in the powerplay due to his economy may be the way to go (partnering with Cummins). Starc at 1st change to counter Shakib. Zampa/Maxwell/Stoinis to do the bulk of the work in the middle overs. Close out with remaining overs from Lyon/Cummins/Starc.

Interesting that Hazlewood is our best bowler. I would still play Zampa because one of the biggest differences between good and great batsman is the abilitiy to play the short ball. The main reason I tip India to win this thing is that their current top 5 can generally play the short ball, unlike thier past teams. Now we've beaten Sri Lanka, Paksitan and West Indies, and my tip is we'll beat Bangladesh with paceman but the semi-finailst will be different India, England and NZ/RSA will be quite comfortable facing short balls.

How about opening with Lyon (economy) in the powerplay tomorrow and saving Starc for first change (or when Shakib comes in)? So it would be, in rough bowling order, Cummins/Lyon/Starc/Stoinis/Zampa/Maxwell as the attack (Stoinis/Zampa/Maxwell to split 20 overs in the middle). Lyon to finish out the innings with Cummins/Starc. Or is that too experimental for a crunch match?

That's some impressive research Nick. Well done on taking the time to do so and providing some quality analysis that we can sink our teeth into and which provides us all with a little bit more layering to our collective thinking. That's one of the beauties of this game, there are so many nuances to think about when considering who we are, who we play, when and where we play and under what conditions. I'm a bit more concerned about variety. I think there's consensus that we have some batting issues re adaptability in our middle order and depth in our lower order. I'm leaning towards playing Lyon to keep things a bit tighter in terms of runs scored against, simply because of potential for us not to be able to "explode" in the last 10-15 as other top contenders can and also because of our lack of runs in the lower order. Do you have the stats on Lyon economy v Zampa? So for me, it's acknowledging a bit of a weakness in run getting (as I can't see this team scoring 350+ against top tier teams) and compensating for this with tight economy from Lyon. The issue of NCN is a complicated one: he probably gives us the best extension to our batting line up, but also goes for a lot. That in itself may cancel things out in terms of NCN value, but overall I think Starc/Cummins/NCN, with Lyon/Maxwell, plus playing Stoinis, may be about our best balance from a purely generic perspective. I still think we need to select for opponent (less so for conditions), such as Bangladesh (where I would be tempted to play Maxwell/Lyon/Zampa), complimented by Starc/Cummins/Stoinis. Though beyond Bangladesh, I'd exclude Zampa. I know that is tough on Zampa, but I think our spinners need to focus on economy over wickets (so Lyon over Zampa) and leave wickets to the three pacers. Conundrum.

I'd go back before that Paul: I prefer returning to the team bonding experience of playing quoits on a 6 week steam ship trip from Oz to England pre-1960s. Then coming home 6-8 months later (not that the length of this combined tour is far off that).

So as I sometimes do I've been playing around with some stats. Was everyone aware that only 15 other players in ODI cricket have bowled more overs than Zampa since the last world cup? I was not. Now if we're looking at stats pretty plainly the issue with Zampa is economy, his strike rate of 37 odd is not bad really. Adil Rashid has a comparable economy but strikes at 31 as an example of what can/should be expected of that role. My want has been for all quicks primarily because I think Hazlewood is good and I'm not overly concerned with variety. Now I tried to unify economy and strike rate into one number. It's a bit rough but if you go for like a pythagorean sort of measure - Square Root of Economy^2 + StrikeRate (divided by 10)^2 - where a lower number is better. Since the last world cup our 3 best bowlers by that measure are Hazlewood, Cummins and Starc in that order. After that though of the players on tour you can throw a blanket over Kane Richardson, Coulter Nile and Zampa (in that order) Meaning if we kept Zampa out as I have suggested it probably doesn't improve upon Coulter Nile or Richardson meaningfully. Coulter Nile for his batting maybe but not on his bowling alone. Indeed Zampa, who I think of as expensive, goes at 5.67 an over and the average run rate by teams since the last world cup is 5.4 so he's probably not as dire as I think. The other interesting part about this is that since the last world cup by my metric our worst two bowling options have been Head and Maxwell, meaning unless we play 5 legit bowlers we don't avoid the issue of having to rely on some pretty poor part time options. In short I think I still might lean toward 4 pace options on the basis that Coulter Nile can bat competently at 8 but as far as how that impacts the bowling unit it's 6 of 1 half dozen the other between NCN, Zampa and/or K Richardson. Of course now in my mind I've opened up the possibility of playing all 4 pace bowlers AND Zampa and living or dying on 5 pure bats and Carey.... I don't even know who I wrote this for in the end... I guess we just have to pray Maxwell doesn't get blown away and that'll more or less be the difference between winning and losing.

I'm not sure the quality of our mid-tier quicks (i.e. beyond Starc/Cummins) give us that freedom to just go pace irrespective of opposition/conditions. Without banging on about playing Bangers, I think we need at least 20 out of Maxwell and Lyon/Zampa tomorrow night.

Apologies, I know you had already said likely method of dismissal, meant to acknowledge that we basically had same approach, but forgot to. Of course that requires our bowlers to be able to hit that spot regularly (and probably have the delivery speed variation to confuse), otherwise we will go for plenty. I know that applies to any bowling approach, but I think in this case the risks of not doing so are amplified. Whilst the focus here is on Shakib, they have some quality accumulators who can also hit out. Tomorrow we need to be selecting the bowling attack for this game, not thinking ahead about what we want to lock down for future games (would otherwise be arrogant to do so and would ignore the potentially negative consequences - SF spot - of failing to meet the immediate challenge at hand). I'm less concerned at our ability to pile on a big score. Perhaps our better approach would be to chase if we win the toss.

they were chucked back there in 72 but by the time we came back in 77, after the success of the World Cup , they were clumped before the first test.