30 years on from a near-Premiership, Fitzroy's influence lives on
An errant paddle of a ball over the boundary line, a dubious free kick and the last snatch at greatness for Fitzroy had faded.…
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An errant paddle of a ball over the boundary line, a dubious free kick and the last snatch at greatness for Fitzroy had faded.…
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A love letter to the summer of 1988/89
I think the bowling of the late 90s / early 2000s was pretty decent too. With Warne, McGrath and Gillespie as constants you regularly had Bichel, Kasprowicz, Lee, McGill, Reiffel, Fleming, Julian and mnay more running around in Shield cricket. I think the bolwig was stronger then that is now. For all our supposed bolwing depth we haven’t seen bowling match-winners emerge -so I think the bowling strength argument and the pitches (??) are not relevant arguments.
Yes our batting depth in most likely in a down cycle, but being in that situation it seems crazy that we’d further dilute that Test batsman pool by diluting a players playing/training schedule through T20 cricket.
I think the season need to run concurrently and players/management need to make a call on what their priority is , T20 or long-form. Contracting then follows accordingly.
It may be time to contract players with CA solely on Test cricket/long-form basis. ODI cricket and T20 not coming into, because simply there are now a variety of other income streams in Australian cricket (BBL) and outside (IPL and all others) that cater for short form cricket. Given that ODI cricket is somewhat of a halfway home now in Australian cricket – do we really need to contract on that form given the focus on the other two?
This then potentially gives us the opportunity to only have long-form players contracted, and start to make the separation. There is no reason this couldn’t flow down to state contracting in modified manner too.
Is T20 really hurting the Australian Test team?
I’ve had a bit of a crack at the Shield before – http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/09/01/taking-cricket-to-the-bush/
Similar principle to what I’ve said there, we have to be realitic that interest in the competition is minimal, so how to use it best as adevelopment tool and perhaps looking outside the square as a promo tool. In a perfect world you’d start the Shield earlier than usual (perhaps at regional centres) so there could be solid competition in the lead-up to an international season, with it continuing through in major centres in the lead-up to mid December opening of Tests. The Shield took a complete break during the BBL, perhaps we keep it going during this period in regional areas. Yes teams will be weakened by Big Bash, but it will allow particularly younger players the chance to play at that level. For those that are concentrating on longer form cricket it won’t matter, but it will allow them to continue momentum of their season instead of the current lull. Perhaps you then build up so that the last round of Shield cricket occurs at the time of the BBL Final Weekend and then the Final immeadiately follows in late mid-to-late February. There is no perfect solution for this, and no matter what we say or do, the Shield will never return to its formerly prominent place. But it could be used for prominence in regional areas.
Cricket season restructure that will hold our interest
A lot of the people who are turning up for T20 cricket would not have a clue what ‘the boring middle overs’ are, a lot are first timers.
Cricket season restructure that will hold our interest
Johnno – the match you are thinking of was an Ashes Legends match played in Sunbury, Victoria commemorating the ‘birthplace of the Ashes’ near to 100 years before. The story goes that the women who burned the bails that became the Ashes were from Sunbury and presented them to the English captain here.
The match was televised on ABC TV, around this time the celebrity/legends matches were quite popular but the novelty soon wore off. A replay randomly showed up on Fox Sports last cricket season.
Certainly not a first-class match, and certainly not in Port Arthur.
Taking cricket to the bush
Thanks Ryan. Hard to believe but the most coverage you could get was small print scores in the results sections of the sports pages. In a funny way the sheer remoteness of it created a mystique with a subsequent huge demand and little supply, hence the couple of years where licensed apparel, trading cards exploded in Australia.
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Jon – I think your view is shared by a lot of people, and that’s exactly why I wrote this.
Lleyton Hewitt-Billy Corgan career trajectory intersection
Yep the editor inserted ‘often without reason’..there were reasons to be critical, but you don’t have often see a commentator single out someone repeatedly.
Dennis Cometti in '89: the best call ever?
The criteria I was referring to is ‘wickets per innings bowled’ of Australian pace bowlers, Alderman comes in number 3 of any bowler that sits in the top 100 wicket-takers in Test cricket. Now not suggesting he’s better than McGrath but on that criteria he fares very well. Lillee, McDermott and Alderman are the top 3 on that criteria.
There are some excuses for the West Indies tours apart from the fact that they were the best in the world. the 1984 tour was his first international series back from the shoulder injury, while in 1991 he was near 35, past his best and only played one test. In his fleeting appearances around injury and bans against the Windies at home he was as well performed as any Aus bowler of the time.
The case for Terry Alderman