The men’s international season is now well and truly underway, brightening up some bleak English winter mornings for me. Here’s five talking points from the first and second ODIs between Australia and India.
Despite some flashes of brilliance, India were out of sorts
While it can’t really be said that Australia outclassed India, due to the hosts having their fair share of mistakes out in the field, that was damn well near the case.
Misfields, dropped catches, and bowling that was all over the place helped Australia to 6-374 in the first ODI and 4-389 in the second.
India’s batting was better, but not much better, seeming lethargic in the second half of both run chases after a promising start of the innings, getting ahead of the game on both occasions.
Alas, the approaches to both run chases by India were unsuccessful, with a combination of poor shot selection and the Australian bowlers being able to get on top nipping already dwindling chances of victory in the bud.
The second ODI saw a better batting performance from India than the first game so fans of a close contest will be hoping that the third ODI will be better still for the visitors.
Australia are in batting paradise
As referenced in the first talking point, Australia’s batsmen had two great afternoons out in the middle, racking up the runs, something that deserves a quick mention.
From David Warner and Aaron Finch getting themselves set at the crease, building a hundred partnership for the third home ODI in a row, to each of the top five batsmen scoring at least a half-century on Sunday, something which has only happened once before in ODI history, the stats abound with good news for the Aussies.
Did Mitchell Starc just have two bad days at the office?
What could have gone wrong did go wrong for Mitchell Starc at the weekend.
The second worst over bowled in an ODI ever, the Yorker that picked up an inside edge to run down to the third-man boundary for four, a wicket off a no-ball. Those are just three unfortunate events endured by the New South Welshman.
It led some to question whether a change in the opening bowling partnership is needed, and, regardless of what the general consensus on that is, it is a question that should be kept in mind considering that across the eleven matches that Starc has played this year, he has taken 12 wickets at an average of only 54.25.
Compare that to his teammate, Josh Hazlewood, who has taken 15 wickets at an average of 28.46 across the nine matches he has played this year, including a superb economical effort of 3/26 against England in the 1st ODI at Old Trafford in September, which hampered the English run chase before it had got a chance to get going.
Hazlewood took another three-for on Friday night, using the short ball to catch out the likes of Mayank Agarwal and Shreyas Iyer, forcing them onto the back foot.
Would a switcheroo between Hazlewood and Starc be appropriate then, whereby Hazlewood bowls the first ball of the innings?
The other option would be to bring up Pat Cummins from first change.
Given that Starc can still send down thunderbolts to get things going once he brushes off what was at times an unlucky weekend for him, any change would probably be negligible.
A clear mind at a different venue in Canberra should be just the tonic for Starc to have a better performance.
(Action Foto Sport/NurPhoto)
Australian injuries could be blessings in disguise
Marcus Stoinis’ side strain picked up on Friday night brought the return of Moises Henriques to an ODI for the first time since the Champions Trophy in England three years ago.
Unfortunate though the circumstances that led to his appearance were, Henriques made an impressive return, picking up a wicket with the help of a superb diving catch from Steve Smith, and catching Virat Kohli out in similar style on the boundary off the bowling of Pat Cummins.
With Stoinis’ efforts on Friday night being incredibly lacklustre, including edging his first ball to the keeper while trying to cut through point, and Henriques doing such a good job in his place, the time may be right for a change, although Henriques would need to be given more time to prove himself before such a decision was made.
A more significant injury was that of David Warner, whose groin injury has forced his withdrawal from the remaining white-ball matches and potentially to miss out on the day/night Test match at Adelaide in just over a fortnight’s time on December 17.
If Warner was unable to play in the first Test, that would remove the selection headache of whether Joe Burns or Will Pucovski should bat at the top of the order as the obvious choice, you would think, would be to put both in as openers.
Now that would be the ideal litmus test to see which batsman is worthy of a continued place in the final XI, in the high-intensity environment of the first Test of the summer, although it probably comes with the disclaimer that this would be dependent on whether or not it would come at the detriment of the team’s overall performance.
Matthew Wade looks set for the T20s in Warner’s place and looks also to be a contender to be Warner’s replacement for the final ODI.
Poor over rates may be simple to diagnose but not simple to fix
I’m not normally one to complain about over rates. In fact, I went through the English Test summer disagreeing that there was a problem with them, mostly because it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the game.
The enjoyment part of that sentence can be said for the two ODIs at the weekend, but I can’t say that there wasn’t a problem with the over rate because there was.
Four hours and nine minutes to bowl 50 overs that should be bowled in three and a half hours is not good enough.
Neither is three hours and 49 minutes, or three hours and 51 minutes, and not really three hours and 45 minutes either.
And yet all four time periods that I have listed are how long it took for India and Australia to bowl their allocations on Friday and Sunday.
We all know that 15 overs should be bowled every hour – that was achieved in the second hour of the Indian innings on Sunday night – but there are many solutions, with all the ones I have heard of having flaws.
Fines were issued to the Indian players after Friday’s game – 20 per cent of their match fee – but a better option would be to penalise teams by docking points from their tally in the Cricket World Cup Super League as this will have a greater impact and would be more likely to force a change.
That wouldn’t stop innings going beyond the three and a half hour long window they are supposed to be completed in though, but stopping the game after that time regardless of how many overs have been played could be perceived as being unfair and also not giving fans the full game they had intended to see.
This is a long-standing problem and one that doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon, requiring some serious thinking from the governing bodies for it to get sorted out.
Paul
Roar Guru
I've got another piece today about how the problem could be solved.
Tony
Roar Guru
Hey. I'm being paid more than you can imagine. Why should I hurry up?
Tony
Roar Guru
Obviously, that's when you use the Tardis
Tony
Roar Guru
Yeah, I think it was India's poor bowling more than anything.
Joshua Kerr
Roar Guru
No worries here, I back Australia whenever they're not playing England and keep an objective view at all times.
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
Adding runs is the answer, but not according to run rate. The best answer is to duplicate the batting teams highest scoring overs as a penalty. ie. 5 overs short and what were the highest 5 scoring 5 overs for the batting team? Also means batting teams are rewarded for an awesome over or three.
Dexter The Hamster
Roar Rookie
Josh, just on Starc, feel he will be OK. He had a couple poor games, and with any bowler sometimes a bit of luck goes a long way. He will be right to go come the Ashes if that's what you were worried about.... :silly: :silly:
Dexter The Hamster
Roar Rookie
Paul, I feel the time wasting or slow play is so much more evident when at the ground. Watching on TV it doesn't seem to bother me as much. But at the ground, I feel like yelling out to them to get on with it. It can really drag, which is not a great selling point when trying to get families to the games.
Dexter The Hamster
Roar Rookie
Its a tough one Paul. I seem to recall you wrote an article on this topic a little while back. I am all for throwing the book big time at the players for slow rates, but as you mention, the batting side is pretty ordinary as well (S Smith new gloves every 12 balls is a bit much surely!!!) and contribute it the slow rates as well. How is the punishment divided up evenly?
Dexter The Hamster
Roar Rookie
Agree James. To me, he is that x-factor bowler who can take 2 wickets in the first over and set you on the way to victory. The bowling equivalent of the "dasher" at the top of the order. It doesn't always come off, but you put up with a few misses.
AREH
Roar Guru
Great call and I feel like he's (continually) such an easy target for many fans or commentators too. Couldn't agree more with all you've said, and this is a guy who might well be considered (if not already) Australia's best ever ODI bowler, at the end of his career.
Paul
Roar Guru
but how do the umpires decide whether it was the fielding team's fault the overs weren't bowled? Batsmen are shockers for wasting time, at least as much as the fielding side does, over the course of a match. Seems a bit harsh for a side to forfeit, lose WC championship points, etc when batsmen could easily be to blame.
Paul
Roar Guru
1 &2. I know India's been criticised, but I thought both sides were sub par. Some of the ground fielding from both teams was simply bad as were some of the attempts at catches. Finch looked uncomfortable especially early in game 1, so did Smith for the first 30 deliveries of his first innings. The only difference was Australia had more guys work through the rough patch and make scores than did India. Neither attack was on-song, as evidenced by 4 scores in excess of 300 and two of the best ODI bowlers in world cricket, Cummins & Bumrah, taking 5 wickets for 271 runs. 3. If Starc had an ounce of luck go his way in game 2, he could have had more than a couple of wickets. What please me most about his effort was, he never gave up. 4. I'm not sure Dave Warner, Stoinis or Justin Langer would be felling very blessed at present! Agreed it gives opportunities to others, but as KL Rahul said, you never want to see a player injured. 5. Time wasting is a really simple problem to fix if the ICC wanted to do it. Right now, players ( on and off the field) are being allowed to get way with all sorts of things by umpires, who seem to want to be every players number one best friend. Case in point; Steve Smith got his second ton the other night and immediately called for a drink. It looked like the umpire was going to say no, but relented and allowed a guy to run on give him a drink (even though he'd had one only a few overs earlier), a wipe down with a towel, a yarn with the other batsman, then back to it. A little while later, Paul Reiffel at square leg had to move from one side to the other because Australia had a left hand/right hand partnership, so he took a leisurely stroll which took the best part of 30 seconds. That might sound like nothing but in the course of a game, all these small bits of time wasting add up. If the ICC instructed umpires to show some urgency and stop all the b.s. reasons for players not being ready to play, I reckon sides would have no problem with this issue.
Trevor
Guest
Lots of possibilities: * If they are not within 2 overs of completion, the match is declared a draw with all World Cup qualifying points going to the other team. * They are penalised 20 runs per over remaining and have to bowl out said overs on top. * They forfeit.
Paul
Roar Guru
what about if team one bowls the full 50 overs on time, but team two only bowls 40 overs in the same amount of time in team one's innings?
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
Hi bazza, I agree. Whilst still a few hiccups, Our batsmen did better, our bowlers did better, our fielders did better.
JB
Guest
For every over bowled past the scheduled completion time the batting team gets runs added to their total. The calculation should be based on the final run rate. So if the bowling team was meant to finish at 5pm and two extra over were bowled then 2 times the run rate would be added. At six an over that's an extra 12 runs. And a fine to boot.
Trevor
Guest
My solution to the over rate issue is that your overs are capped at what you bowled at time. That is, if you had only finished 42 over at time, you have to continue to bowl out your 50 overs, but you only receive 42 in response.
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
I agree 100% with this. He's a beautiful bowler having an ugly trot. I believe the light bulb could switch back on at any time. The other thing that needs to be considered is that Cummins is being rested until the 1st test so we already need to play another bowler. I guess it doesn't matter that much in a dead rubber but the idea of bringing in two new bowlers doesn't sit that well with me.
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
I quite like the idea of docking a point or two for slow over rates but I can also see a few problems with it. First up, I believe it won't make a hell of a lot of difference to the top 3 or 4 sides. Losing a point or two here and there isn't going to stop the front runners from qualifying but it could make all the difference to the teams struggling to make the cut. I realise it might affect their position in the draw but for the top sides that's not a huge issue. To win the WC you generally have to beat the big guns at some point anyway. .. The 2nd problem is that there will always be one team who is unaffected by it because they happen to be the hosts for the next World Cup. They qualify, no matter what I'm told. .. Finally, I think there needs to be a reasonable amount of slack afforded in extreme heat. I've played plenty of cricket in 40+ heat and believe me, it's brutal. Everyone seems to slow down just that little bit. Bowlers take a touch longer to get back to the mark, fielders are a bit slower to get into position and drinks breaks are more frequent. I suggest that before he makes his final decision the match referee should jog a lap (walk it, in Boonies case) of the oval and see how like it. That last sentence is supposed to be a joke but I do think they need to carefully consider how much hurry up the give teams on the really hot days. Too much and they run the risk of killing someone.