Australia's batsmen need to find their mettle for the third Test

I have to agree with that, JN. An unlucky break last night wont help his cause, though it was mostly a matter of luck who got out when with the ball moving like that. Certainly, a series average of 30 wont cement his place. On the other hand, if he scores two centuries in five Tests?

Dujon debuted as a batsman. Knott averaged almost as much as Paul Sheahan. Marsh averaged over 35 in his first 40 tests or so when averaging 40 was very good. he did that while keeping. in england, NZ on green tops, in the Windies on turners. he could easily have been a specialist batsman, if he had been able to focus ont his. ( Dennis Lindsay was a phenomenon. A Bradman level in that series. Not to mention Les Ames. 8 tons. Walcott was like Bairstow and Wade, a keeper, and not. I have no stake in Nevill. would have dropped him before they did. then brung him back when Wade flopped and Nevill was back in touch. The keepers in Canberra; Brisbane; Perth; Melbourne - how do you assess them? on similar tracks to the same bowlers? whatever did happen to the immensely talented and perfectly named Tom Triffitt? who decided who's the best keeper? there must be some objective benchmark. where are the stats? when is the trial? Mitch Marsh is captain of WA and the Scorchers. wade a grub? FFS. as for him not cementing his place in the team, he has a ton in his last two matches. Paine doesn't have a fifty in his last 9 i think. as for the reviews, i am a DRS opponent. but Paine had a shocker. the end. i am sorry i missed your definitive epistles on the absolute unsuitability of some of our most experienced players and state captains. i will pay more attention. Some of us are still stunned Paine was ever re-selected. Not because it was "wrong", but because it was a hail mary. Among many others. Some will come off. Making him captain.... sheer panic. Not picking Carey - gutless, and conservative.

Just heard that stat i was talking about in the test from tuffers and Vaughan pod. Warner's first innings avg in eng is 13/14. He has no ashes centuries in England. Vaughan's top 4 for us: Harris, usi, lab, Warner. Personally I would dump Warner. But that is influenced due to my huge personal dislike of his character. Taking my emotion out of it. I can see the logic. As I have said I would keep bangers. He has faced 10 times the amount of balls as Warner. And not dropped a sitter and a fairly tough one. Warner is being carried completely at the moment. His nickname now should be suitcase.

Listening to a very good English podcast. The analyst. For any of u true cricket lovers. Simon Mann one of the best voices listen to when listening to cricket, beautiful afternoons drinking beers with the radio on. Simon Hughes is the other, grates a bit, but knows his stuff. Talking about Warner in this pod. Said he has shaved his beard. About time in my opinion. Facial hair should be reserved for Abe Lincoln, iron gloves, lillee and King wally. The rest of u tw ats, have a shave. And if u r bald. Get over it. Facial hair still doesn't cover the fact that u r bald!! :thumbup: :laughing: :thumbup:

Interesting stats on Smith’s percentage of total. But have to think about that in comparison with Kohli, or even Williamson. Kohli arguably has had better batsmen in his team than Smith over the years. As for Bradman, it wasn’t just McCabe - there was a whole bunch of batsmen in his era averaging in the 40s - Morris, Barnes, Ponsford, Hassett, Harvey, Brown, Jackson, Kippax, Fingleton. “Matthew Wade has 118 runs in the series but 110 of them came in one innings“. True, but if you knew a batsman could get a century one innings in four, you’d take it. Scores of 0 or 1 aren’t that much different to 10 or 15. Often just means the ball with your number on it comes earlier. Have to see how it plays out across the whole series.

It was in response to your “one bowler” comment.

I'd suggest a wicketkeeper-batsman like Gilchrist is an all-rounder, and like all good all-rounders are called as such as they would hypothetically be able to hold their place in the side at both disciplines. Knott, Dujon and the others you mention were great batsmen in addition to their keeping ability, but at no stage in their career would have have been able to hold their place in the side on batting alone. Gilchrist was the first. Nevill's keeping has regressed poorly over the past year as he has been forced to take up a top 6 role in the NSW domestic scene as young all-rounders like Sangha, Uppal and Edwards have all been played at no.7. He's no longer the keeper he was when he played for Australia. None of the players you mentioned would be a good enough captain. Wade has far too much of a grub vibe about him and he's not even cemented his spot in the team; I've already stated why Head can't captain and that same reason applies to Labuschagne and Mitch Marsh (why him?); I've already stated why Cummins can't captain and the same applies to Lyon and Khawaja is too weak a leader, like in the mould of Smith. We need someone who can stand up for himself. I love Usman, but he's got enough on his plate as far as his batting is concerned. It's not as if he blew any particularly obvious decisions, both shouts in the 2nd innings were appearing to go well down leg and only hindsight proved definitively that they were just hitting leg. You can't expect your wicketkeeper to differentiate between centimetres, that's what the umpire is for.

maybe you aren't old enough to remember old Iron gloves' batting getting him the gig Or Dennis Lindsay Alan Knott Ken Wadsworth Jeff Dujon Sanga etc Peter Nevill's defenders said all of this at the time- - best keeper in the country, shouldn't be expected to make runs (even though he vaulted up due to his batting), would make runs if only the top order did - what puerile excuses for a test #7. Three weeks ago he was the second best batting keeper we had ever had (ahem) and that was a strong reason he had to stay in the team - now his "batting" doesn't matter at all. Now: 1. If Paine is the best keeper in the country - sack all the keeping coaches. PS there is no evidentiary proof of this claim. How many have you seen, BTW? and the so called claim must get weaker every time he drops a fairly straight forward chance standing back? 2. The only player in the setup fit to captain? Thanks' tim's mum. He wasn't even captain of Tas ahead of Wade when picked. Wade could captain. Head could captain. Labuschagne could captain - he certainly can lead. Cummins could captain. Lyon could captain. M Marsh would probably be a real good captain. Khawaja could captain - another state captain. 3. His poor reviews do matter. It's as simple as that. As captain and keeper, he has to set the framework, either backl the bowler in or not, or make the call himself. in the 240 years you raise, we have dropped about 200 players. not everyone agrees. don't get your knickers in a know. bias. pfffft. i am a fan. but his Tim is up, it Paines me to say.

i recall the look of shock on Archer's face when Maxwell dispatched his 147km bouncer to the fence in the pool game. had he not got over-finessy against wood's long hop next over, the world could be very different right now...

I hope you're right and they do bowl shorter lengths to our guys, Jonathan. The one thing England have in their favour is the ability to use the ball in home conditions. That depends greatly on bowling a fuller length, so if they get short, they might cause some consternation for our batsmen, but they might equally give up runs as well.

and he's also taken 4 wickets at an average of 48.75, whereas Cummins has taken 13 wickets at an average of 16.30. I hope Stokes keeps bowling more quickly than Cummins, if he continues to produce figures like that.

Larwood, Tyson, Willis, Malcolm, Harmison. Richie Benaud said that Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson was the quickest bowler he ever saw.

Warner is averaging 35.08 from his past 7 tests. That average is inflated by some home tests. The past 5 tests have seen him average under 24. That is "drop me" right there. Would Burns have done anyway worse? In his last 7 tests he has averaged exactly 40 (though this is blown out by two massive tons. The rest was diabolical). IF he scores some shield runs, he'll get picked come summer IF the cupboard is still bare. Patterson should eventually replace Wade. Carey should eventually replace Paine.

There is no strong case for dropping Paine, and it seems apparent to me that your own personal biases are influencing this view. Paine is the best keeper in Australia by a long way, and is the only player in the setup fit to captain. Smith and Warner are banned, Head still hasn't cemented his spot in the side and giving the captaincy to Cummins would add to his already immense workload as the only bowler guaranteed to play every match, and as a no.8 batsman expected to make 20+ each innings. Don't try and justify by saying that his batting isn't good enough, or he doesn't use his reviews well enough. You don’t pick your keeper based on batting, and you don’t pick your captain based on how well he uses his reviews. If our top order wasn’t so poor we wouldn’t need him for runs, and if the officiating was so awful we wouldn’t need to rely on DRS. The game went on for 110 years before we had a genuine keeper-batsman in Gilchrist, and 130 years before the DRS was even an idea in the heads of ICC officials.

There is no strong case to drop Paine at all, and it seems apparent to me that your own biases are influencing that view. See, Paine is the best keeper in Australia by a long way, and the only player in the country fit to captain. Giving Cummins the captaincy this early will impact extraordinarily on his bowling workload; and Head has not yet cemented the place in his side so it'd be foolish to award it to him. Smith and Warner are banned. Don't try and justify it by talking about his batting, because if Australia's top order was strong enough they wouldn't even need Paine to bat. That's not his job. And don't try and justify it by citing his review record, because if the umpires actually did their job properly there would be no need to even utilise DRS. It's not Paine's job to bat, and it's definitely not Paine's job to umpire. He's a wicketkeeper and a captain and he does both of those jobs well.

Of course we are, but sometimes the others lift to fill the void. Let's hope this game is one of those times. I'd drop Bancroft - he looks awful and even when staying in doesn't score runs. Harris and Warner are similar - pick them both and one will get runs, that's my tip. We then need one of Ussie and Marnus to fire. Ussie has looked in good touch

Exactly - he struggled against short bowling in the WC because it was harder to hit boundaries off it.

If Australia take their catches and drs more accurately (hopeful umpires are more accurate too) they can win. Australian bowlers have dominated but keep giving 2nd and 3rd chances to batsmen.