Virat Kohli says the two-day Test came down to bad batting

Every nation prepares there pitches to suit the homes team but there are limits, IE any pitch must be prepared to last for six days. If you think when both teams in the first two days couldn't manage to get a reasonable 20 over score has nothing to do with the pitch then that remains your opinion. I don't share it.

"You seem to dismiss a cross batted stroke at the beginning of an innings as unlucky whereas I would view it as a silly shot to attempt against a moving ball as many batsmen have found out," I've no idea where you got this from. I've made no mention of cross bat shots and certainly don't think the shot played by Kohli was unlucky. If anything, it was a poor choice to a delivery that was too full to cut and made worse because it didn't spin, just like another 10 or 15 dismissals. I've also been watching the BBC coverage and I agree the pitch was not great, but it was far from unplayable as I've said several times. People like you have made up their minds, so it's a waste of my time trying to suggest an alternative view

I have watched all these games screened on BBC, have you? I was replying to the views of the top rated India batsman who tells us that the pitches are fine when he himself could only manage one score of 60 odd and was out twice for naught, hardly a true easement on the state of these pitches. You seem to dismiss a cross batted stroke at the beginning of an innings as unlucky whereas I would view it as a silly shot to attempt against a moving ball as many batsmen have found out, When you see the top suffice of a wicket taken away in buckets between innings you know your playing on a heap.

Hey Bernie, check out this great youtuber: Jarrod Kimber. :cricket: :thumbup:

Yes indeed, I’ll take your word for that. Inzamam-ul-Haq on the other hand gave no such clues when he first burst onto the scene as a brilliant batsman at the 1992 world cup. 22 at the time, he was tall, quite wiry, and genuinely slim. I wonder what happened ?

I agree.Alec has always seemed like a fine man.If only they'd let him open the batting,firstly with Gooch and then with Atherton,how different might Englands cricketing fortunes in the 1990's turned out. As for Ranatunga,I can remember listening to the radio reports on Sri Lankas 1st ever Test Match back in 1982.He was only 18 but I can vividly remember Henry Blofeld stating that he might have an issue with his weight/fitness in the years to come...prophetic words indeed!!!!

Back to Alec Stewart: I’ve always thought he must be a pretty good bloke. He was captain on the 1998-99 Ashes tour down under here and the triangular one day series that followed involving Sri Lanka as the other team saw England squaring off against the Lankans in Adelaide one fine day in late January. England made about 302 batting first, Graeme Hick made a century and then a 21 year old Mahela Jayawardena announced himself to the cricketing world with a fine 120 odd off about 110 balls to help the Lankans successfully chase down the target. In the dying stages, the ratbag that was Arjuna Ranatunga was at the crease, and there had been some incidents when the Lankans fielded, and now he was antagonising some of the English fielders and I was watching at the time and the stump mikes clearly picked up (as in live) Stewart, keeping, saying to Fatso (Ranatunga) at the striker’s end “Your actions all day today have been unworthy of an international captain”. I agreed totally with Stewart’s sentiments – he wasn’t being a sore loser (given England were about to go down in a thrilling nailbiter) but rather would have said the exact same thing in the exact same tone of voice had his team been about to win. Among other things, I believe we have Ranatunga (originally) to thank for runner being banned in international cricket, something which I don’t like.

Tim Zoehrer was a fruit cake. He was talented, but lazy. He also allegedly had a crack at the coach’s (Bob Simpson’s) daughter. It was apparently more the bragging than the actual supposed deed that urinated people off, and yet Zoehrer prolly felt hard done by.

It would be an interesting exercise by Roar to list the worst cricket autobiographies ever published.I must have read 100’s over the years and whilst some are decent,the majority are dire.My personal favourite though has to be The Gloves are Off by Tim Zoehrer.I picked it up in a Charity shop in Perth back in the late 1980’s for $1 and I wanted to go back the next day to get my money back! If you get a chance,download a copy,read it and weep.It was truly unbelievable! Other honourary mentions must also go to Danny Morrison,Brad Hogg and of course Michael Clarke.

The average length of a cricketer's autobiography is about 300 pages ... I tend to find the parts about their life pre first class career quite boring actually.

LOL ... yeah 654 is a great effort ... I think the key to reading such a book is to not make the mistake of trying to read it from cover to cover, but just pick out bits that you can draw inspiration from for your own life situation and eventually you'll cover all 800 pages as a matter of course ... Yeah, Wayne Phillips also made a majestic 120 in Bridgetown against a full strength windies attack in early 1984 as well as a near run a minute 91 at Headingly in 1985.

Good stuff Bernie...Alec Stewart is a great example.He was a magnificent player of quick bowling,perfectly suited to opening the innings.Jack Russell was an absolutely peerless wicketkeeper and as you say,a gutsy number 7 batsman as well.So naturally England stuffed the pair of them up. Australia wasn't blameless either.Remember Wayne Phillips? A 160+ opening the innings on debut so what did Australia do? Let's bat him at 7 and make him keep wicket...Madness! I must have missed the bit about Devon Malcolm in Waugh's autobiography...as hard as tried,I never managed to make it past page 654.

Hey Ian, how ya goin mate? Yeah, England used to do the same thing in the 1990s: Jack Russell was one of the best two keepers in the world along with Ian Healy, but they gave the gloves to Alec Stewart, who was also a genuinely good safe keeper. The problem was that Stewart was also one of the best two or three or four batsmen in England at the time and when he kept, his batting plummeted … so they gave the gloves to him to gain the runs they wouldn’t get from Russell, but by giving the gloves to him (Stewart), the runs sacrificed meant that he didn’t really contribute that many more runs than Russell (who wasn’t a crap batsman anyway, and actually made an Ashes ton in 1989) would have contributed anyway … sheer madness. As for Devon Malcom, yeah Steve Waugh agrees with you, he (SWaugh) wrote in his 800 page autobiography, words to the effect of “The English had no idea just how relieved we were every time Malcom was left out and a piddling line and length medium pacer picked in his place”.

Sadly,as an Englishman your hopes will probably be realised Bernie.There's already talk by the 'experts' here that either Bairstow or Butler must get the gloves in the Ashes due to their 'superior' batting.Bairstow averages 34.45 after 73 Tests and Butler averages 34.53 after 50.In 123 Tests they've scored 8 100's between them. It's agreed than Ben Foakes is a magnificent keeper but his batting against pace is suspect,or so these genius's claim.Also it's said that as England will only play one spinner per Test the opportunities for Foakes to show his class behind the stumps will be limited as either of the other 2 will do an adequate job standing back. And that is why we'll probably get stuffed next (your) summer. We'll pick a team of good,solid cricketers who can all bowl and bat a bit and leave the specialists at home. I always remember Steve Waugh saying that he couldn't believe it when Devon Malcolm wasn't picked instead of a medium pacer who would take 1-100 but might get 30 odd runs at number 8.Sure Devon was erratic but when he got it right,he was truly horrible to face.He should have played 100 Test Matches.

I'm not sure what Test cricket you've been watching but Kohli's made 0, 62 and 27 in the past 2 Tests. And in his last innings, he played on. In these same two Tests, two guys have made centuries and 5 guys have made 50 or more. The pitches Australia turned on for the first two Test resulted in 1 century and 4 scores of 50. And you call these pitches heaps? :laughing:

I would be very careful if I was you, Australia has yet to play on these heaps. But never mind Virat Kohli tells us the pitches are fine and there’s nothing wrong with them. But then I would value his opinion more if he had made a decent score on those wonderful pitches instead of a big round naught on them twice

There were more runs scored in the NZ vs Aus T20 match off 40 overs.

I also don't want to see tests lasting only 2 days either though...

It's the ball that doesn't turn viciously that is more dangerous. The pitch had so many balls turning viciously past the outside edge that the batsmen would play for spin and hence when one inevitably didn't turn as much the batsmen would struggle to adjust, particularly as the ball really skidded on as well. It's a mixture of all three, a poor wicket, a heavily lacquered pink ball and poor batsmanship but yes, the wicket was dreadful.

Perth is a brilliant wicket.. always a fair bit in it for the batsmen especially if you get yourself in. Great battle between bat and ball. Exactly what you want in a test wicket. That was not.