The bane of any summer? The quality of our red-ball opposition.
I am hungry for some competitive Test match cricket and all we get is a touring team that runs the same gauntlet and makes the same mistakes year in year out.
We all know the drill by now. Australia belts up 440 for five wickets we send the touring team in and they are 3/72 and now doing a rearguard action. We flick through the other channels and there is nothing else on.
Here is my wish list for all touring cricket sides to Australia and a must read for any cricket administrator.
1. For Don Bradman’s sake play some touring matches at the venues you are playing at
It’s not hard. Play Queensland twice at the Gabba.
Play W.A. twice in Perth. Get some match practice in. These wickets are fortresses for Australia. You will need to play there and get used to the heat and the bounce and getting yourselves in on the wicket. So swallow a couple of flies and watch the ball.
2. You will need to take 90 percent of your match chances
Time and time again a touring side will drop a top level batsman and then get punished for it. You will need Bobby Simpson-level catching standards when touring the land down under.
3. Leave the spinner at home
Trust me on this. I know you want variety with your attack. Any spinner you bring out to Australia will average over 40.
The wicket-taking machine Muttiah Muralitharan averaged 75.41 in Australia. This bowler took 800 Test wickets and if he can’t do it – why do you think your tweaker can?
4. Pace and more pace
Medium pacers should be banned at the gates of any airport this country has because they won’t do well on our hard dry strips.
If you don’t have out and out pace bowlers well you may as well cancel your tour. Richard Hadlee, Malcolm Marshall, Jasprit Bumrah, Imran Khan and Joel Garner. If you are serious about winning in Australia and not just collecting your pay.
The pace is going to have to be hot and skilful.
5. It’s not necessarily your greatest batsmen that will work in Australia
The mighty formers sides of the West Indies often had surprise batsmen do well. Who was their best player in Australia you might ask?
It wasn’t the Master Blaster Viv Richards nor The Supercat Clive Lloyd, it was the nudger and gap finder from Trinidad Mr Larry Gomes who averaged 70.33 in Australian conditions.
Gordon Greendige only scored one century in Australia. Allan Lamb never hit a century in Australia and both are regarded as fine players of pace. It takes a special player to get runs in Australia find them.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Hadlee was very fast when he was young, playing for NZ he played on a lot longer and when he was slower. In the old days they played a huge number of tour matches and at test venues. There is also no expense involved at the traditional test venues they dont pay to hire the ground they have it for the duration of the cricket season. Thats why they can afford to play Sheffield Shield matches. Big Bash matches though with drop in wickets at non traditional grounds they would cost a massive amount of money.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
PS Sorry Mitchell for slight overreaction there. Got of bed on the wrong side! Good points for discussion nonetheless.
AREH
Roar Guru
At home it's almost as if Australia are either comprehensively torching opponents, or being beaten. It's odd.
JOHN ALLAN
Guest
QUESTION: Do fans of club & rep teams enjoy their sides decimating their opponents or would they rather view "a contest". After all the aim is to win.
Tanmoy Kar
Roar Rookie
Australia should bring India, England and South Africa alternately in 3 years to have some competitive cricket in each Summer.
Brendon the 1st
Roar Rookie
You can do well without pace here, Glen McGrath, Terry Alderman and Paul Reiffel did fine. Accuracy, bowling at the top of off and using the small inconsistencies in the pitch are what's needed. To often bowlers are searching for the wicket when what they need to do is keep putting it on an uncomfortable length and a good line. It's not rocket science yet it appears none of these paid professionals can figure it out. NZ have been a rabble and there performance has been woeful.......oh Yeah, and bat first legend duh.
matth
Roar Guru
Seriously we only have to go back 12 months to find our last series loss at home. Come back to me if we dismantle India next year
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
Hi DaveJ, I agree. 1 - I think it’s makes sense for the tourist to play warmups and really, just giving fans the best games by this. 2 - is their a country or ground ‘taking catches’ isn’t obvious? 3 - this is hard to work out without touring games, which bowler (spinner) performs, if they don’t cut it, don’t play them. 4 - yep, that seems to be the cut of our grounds looking at history. Lol. 5 - facing pace is like facing spin. Some have it stronger then other, some not at all.
Paul
Roar Guru
hi Mitchell, good on you for putting in this piece. There are certainly a lot of things touring sides need to consider before they tour; The touring sides cricket board needs to think about how they best prepare, bearing in mind the tremendous cost of having a touring party in a foreign country. I agree practice games are the way to go but in this day & age, no local cricket board is going to give away the advantage they have by allowing teams to play at Test venues, so touring sides perhaps need to try and create conditions similar to what they can expect. Australia has done this more than once with training camps in Darwin and there's no reason why touring sides can't do something similar. Totally agree about taking every chance that comes a touring sides way. They also need some luck with DRS as well. Leaving the spinner at home's not a great idea IMO, but using them judiciously is. Guys like Ashwin can still win Tests at some Australian venues, as long as the captain and his bowlers has good plans and his attack executes them properly. He only played in the Adelaide Test last year, took 6 wickets for the game at an average of 24.5 and India won. Richard Hadlee would be thrilled you've included him in the pace department with Malcolm Marshall and Jasprit Bumrah. I'm wondering what your suggestions are, if you don't have any out & out fast bowlers? I'm also wondering about someone like Vernon Philander who averaged a tick over 23 when he last toured Australia? On your comments, he would have been left at home! The issue you raise about the batting in Australia comes down to one word - patience. Pujara showed the world how to play Down Under last year and anyone who can do that, will generally be rewarded.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
What on earth are you going on about? Talk about short memories!, We flog an inexperienced Pakistan and an undercooked New Zealand and suddenly we’re kings of the world? It was only a year ago that India thrashed us. We’ve lost the last three series at home to South Africa. If it’s hard to win here, we’re one of the worst away from home ourselves. England can at least say beat us in 2010-11 and we haven’t won there since 2001. We haven’t won in Asia since 2011. As for the nonsense about Larry Gomes and Gordon Greendige- the Windies tanned our hides in five consecutive series in Australia from 1979 to 1992 so they’d be laughing at the idea that it was only Gomes that worked.
Omnitrader
Roar Rookie
when sids went well he was 140+
Chris Love
Roar Guru
Pace and More Pace? Wagner is only really a medium isn’t he? Sids went well for a long time.