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Joined July 2013
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Couldn’t agree more. I love watching Bale play for Spurs, but for £80m+ we could buy 2-3 world class players, plus a few promising youngsters. It’s a ridiculous amount of money for a player who has had one gun season (on the back of a couple of good seasons).
Bale trains for Spurs as Real rumours continue
Nice article.
I must say one of the things that annoys me about Australian sports media is the constant need to convert Pounds/Euros to Australian dollars. I don’t mind when it’s displayed as an additional figure such as in this article, but it’s confusing when AUD is the only figure listed. I’m talking to you, Fox Sports.
This is particularly evident with record signing fees. As a hypothetical – Ronaldo was signed for 80 million pounds back in June 2009, which equated to roughly AU$160 million at the time. Bale might now be sold for 85 million pounds, or AU$144 million. Bale would be the new world record signing, despite technically being sold for AU$16mill less than Ronaldo.
Bale trains for Spurs as Real rumours continue
I agree Masimba. He’s one of the few batsman who looks willing to grind out some ugly runs.
Australia need Warner at Old Trafford
I do not doubt Hughes struggles against Swann, but those statistics are misleading.
Firstly, Swann has only dismissed Hughes twice this series. Both were debatable LBW decisions. One looked to pitch outside leg and was given not out, then overturned as replays showed it may have pitch a bees wang on leg. The second was given out, reviewed, and shown to be just clipping the leg bail – umpires call upheld.
Secondly, the majority of Hughes dot balls vs Swann came in the first innings at Lords when Hughes took the majority of the strike against Swann to allow Agar to play the pace bowlers.
So the basis of dropping Hughes is that he played too many dot balls in an innings of 81 not out? Perhaps if our other batsman were a little more patient we wouldn’t be having this discussion!
Australia need Warner at Old Trafford
Kyle Abbott and Marchant de Lange would make a pretty formidable club bowling attack!
I must have missed the 380 Hayden scored against Sri Lanka. I remember him getting the same score against Zimbabwe though.
Australia need Warner at Old Trafford
This line up is probably about right.
Haddin vs Wade is a flip of the coin, though Haddin being a right handed batsman may offer an advantage vs Swann.
It seems a shame to drop Agar, though Lyon was unlucky to be dropped initially. Maybe Hughes can keep and we can bring in Lyon for Haddin?
Australia need Warner at Old Trafford
Sydney – “grand final rematch against Hawthorn, which will mark the first time that a regular season match is played at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium.”
Am I missing something? Haven’t the Swans played about 2-3 regular season games at Homebush for the past 10 or so seasons?
Your AFL team's run home: part I
We’ll have to agree to disagree on Gilchrist. Calling him a “club-standard keeper” shows contempt for his performances. He was easily a couple of pegs above Wade or Haddin, but again, not in the realms of Healy.
I think the issue is a failure to recognise Gilchrist as a good Test standard keeper, whereas Healy would be classed as a brilliant keeper. Graeme Swann is a good Test level spinner, but he’s no Shane Warne. However, I’m not going to call him “club-standard”.
Did you mean to say Healy once went two Tests without conceding a bye? Or two months? It certainly wasn’t two years.
Chris Hartley needs to be our next 'keeper
Sorry Big Merv but Gilchrist was definitely a good keeper.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, he wasn’t excellent and not in the top tier of keepers like Knott or Healy, but he was certainly good. He spent the majority of his career keeping to big turning spinners like Warne and MacGill. These days we have Wade/Haddin struggling to take straight ones from the likes of Lyon and Agar.
Gilchrist’s keeping performance slipped a bit in his later years which often leads people to incorrectly judge him a poor keeper.
Chris Hartley needs to be our next 'keeper
That would be an interesting stat, though it’s only going to get worse. NSW is to cricket what Victoria is to Aussie Rules.
Why Australian cricket needs to pick and stick
You feeling OK Blocker?
Wade and Haddin average about 34 in Tests and 39 in FC. Hartley hasn’t played a Test but averages about 31 in FC. So there is up to an 8 run difference in batting average.
How much does a dropped catch cost? Missed stumping? How many runs are saved by a keeper who can stop byes and dive for wide balls? How many runs can be prevented by a freak stumping or catch?
The fact is that players like Gilchrist changed the common perception of wicketkeeping, because he was a brilliant bat and a very good keeper. Not quite in the very top category of excellent keepers, but he kept to a very high standard throughout most of his career and easily handled spinners including Warne and MacGill.
If we had a keeper that could average 60 with the bat but was an Otto-bin behind the stumps, we’re no better off. We need to return to a position of respecting the value of true wicketkeeping skills.
Chris Hartley needs to be our next 'keeper
And those runs were also scored on pitches that have been criticised for being too bowler-friendly.,
Why Australian cricket needs to pick and stick
That’s a poor comment Blocker.
Neither Smith nor Khawaja has been given an extended run to prove themselves at the top level – the type of run Cowan received. It’s impossible to discard these two before allowing them the chance to prove themselves.
Darren Lehmann's having a rare bad week
What we desperately need is to stop chopping and changing the side. The situation is not as dire as some reports would have you believe. We need to offer some stability to the current crop – at the very least give them the rest of this series to show some ticker. I would not be at all surprised to see someone like Khawaja or Hughes stand up and fight for some big scores in the coming games.
Throwing two youngsters in as openers for the home series is dangerous, particularly on the basis of one season’s form. Ideally, we need to leave the core group of players and initiate one youngster at a time.
Darren Lehmann's having a rare bad week
Agreed.
Bowling first has done us no favours in the first two games. Let’s have a bat without craters for Swann to bowl in to please.
The Old Trafford prognosis: Win the toss and bowl
Steve O’Keefe – the forgotten man. He was on a plane to India before getting injured
Ashton Turner: Why is he now playing for Australia?
Dingo I’ve heard tales of your club’s Senior Pro. It was very unfortunate he was born in Australia during the time of Healy and Gilchrist, as rumour has it he would have played 100 Tests for any other nation
Combined Ashes XI after Lord's Test
Bearfax – as mentioned earlier you should never rely purely on statistics to make this type of analysis.
It is too easy to manipulate statistics, for example I could argue that the team should be:
Root
Watson
Trott
Bell
Bairstow
Clarke
Haddin
Swann
Anderson
Siddle
Harris
This is backed up by statistics assuming the criteria is most runs & most wickets.
Also, if we could only name a side based purely on statistics, we would have nothing to debate (such as the fact that Dingo’s lineup included Bairstow, who is clearly a hump).
Combined Ashes XI after Lord's Test
Don’t forget Prior’s slow reactions in his missed stumping of Agar in the 1st innings at Trent Bridge…
Combined Ashes XI after Lord's Test
I think using statistics as the sole adjudicator is a very poor method.
In fact your own post could be seen as contradictory. On the one hand you’re saying it’s wrong to use statistics and then disregard them, but then you’ve selected the English XI with Siddle & Harris replacing Broad & Bresnan. Bresnan has a bowling average of 14.50, nearly 11 runs less per wicket than Siddle.
Statistics should form part of an analysis, but rarely should they be the only criteria.
Combined Ashes XI after Lord's Test
6 misses? I can recall a couple but I’m struggling to come up with 6. There was an easy one he green lighted from Root, though it literally passed over Clarke’s left knee so they can share the blame for that one.
Let’s face it, picking either Haddin or Prior is open for criticism as both have been less than impressive.
Combined Ashes XI after Lord's Test
Leaving it in the hands of the umpires is the way to go. They’re already reviewing every dismissal to check the front foot, I’m sure they can quickly check hot spot as well.
We don’t want to go back to seeing a batsman smash it in to his pads and be given out LBW with no hope of the decision being corrected. I know we used to accept those decisions in the old days but, whether we like it or not, we must move with the times to improve the game.
Here’s how to fix DRS
I certainly agree about the over proliferation of T20 cricket.
T20 is promoted because it attracts non-traditional cricket fans. We all have mates who are primarily in to AFL, NRL, or soccer, who will tell us Test cricket is boring and T20 is awesome.
The problem of course is that these are fickle fans. Their attention span, like a traditional cricket fan’s interest level in T20, is brief.
HENRY: Blame short form cricket for Aussie batting woes
Sorry Ads, but that’s just blatantly incorrect. England has a dedicated window for T20 cricket, the same as we do for the Big Bash.
HENRY: Blame short form cricket for Aussie batting woes
Sydney has performed extremely well this year but they’ll field one of the youngest and least experienced sides in this finals series. It’ll be interesting to see how those youngsters stand up under finals pressure.
AFL finals: Who's hot, who's not, and who's flying under the radar