Hi Paul, fully agree. I think Clarke and Geoff Lawson are pushing Cummins because they want a NSW man at the helm. They see a vacancy coming up and want their man in the job.

I’m from NSW and think not only is this 50 over thing a power grab, it’s potentially a risk to one of our greatest assets.

Hi Bernie, as others have pointed out, judging a captain on results has limited value. I suggested a broader look at the culture, record, stability and outright punching power of the inherited side as well as opposition and home/away issues.
Ponting inherited a stable line up and had the advantage of an apprenticeship under Waugh.
He also had a exceptional bowling attack. The likes of Warne and McGrath set their own fields and don’t need much guidance on where to bowl. So I think Ponting and Clarke had an easy transition. I thought it took Ponting a while to get established in the role and I considered Clarke the same way. Just my opinion.

I agree with those who are against Cummins being captain. The rotation of fast bowlers would be out the door and, as pointed out by others, when he’s injured we get a stand-in and more instability in a team that requires a calm, consistent leader.
I’m also disappointed in Payne’s captaincy, but I would leave him in the role. Other captains, including Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting took some time to establish the best approach to the job. I don’t see any viable option at the moment.

As for Cummins, he wouldn’t be able to field at long on during his bowling stint, even though I think Bob Willis and Ian Botham may have done so on occasions.

Why would you risk reducing the potency of your best strike weapon? It makes no sense.

I have little faith in the selectors and Langer as coach, to make decisions that end up with the best team on the park for now and the future.

I’d be happier to see Hohns out the door than Cummins as captain.

Hi U, Paine averages 32, played a game saving innings recently, is the best test keeper in the country and you want to drop him because the you think the other batsmen in the team aren’t good enough!!! Glad you’re not a selector. You give no support for your opinion. You also haven’t nominated a replacement skipper. Please think before you type, and hopefully add a useful comment next time. Comments like yours are exactly why I don’t usually participate in Roar discussions. Uninformed and unsupported comments are everywhere in this forum. Please lift the standard.

Brain explosion by Wade agreed. A little early to think he’s played himself out of the team. Selectors don’t normally make more changes unless they have to. If Wade makes some runs in the second dig he won’t be dropped.

Wade and Head have not been great successes, but I disagree they aren’t Test player standard. Unless you only rate those who meet particular standards that aren’t defined.

Tim Paine is the best red ball keeper in Australia , averages over 30 and captains the team. I think this makes him Test standard. If anyone wants to argue Paine’s keeping, as a Level 3 coach and keeper coach specialist, I’m happy to enter the discussion.

I’m very surprised no one has mentioned that when 6 ball overs were reintroduced that there was a broadly accepted argument that it would speed up play. Having played both versions I couldn’t work out the logic but the speed of play was the prevailing reason.

I think 8 ball overs are better for all the reasons given here. I don’t think you can leverage that as an argument to reduce the ridiculous field running that occurs now.
Fines and then suspensions for Captains that don’t get the overs in on time is the only way you’ll see the speed of play improved. I’m sure Duckworth and Lewis could provide captains and umpires with an hourly over rate that would ensure we get the overs in by scheduled stumps. Teams would have Required Over Accumulation Range (ROAR) to meet by the end of each session.

I take your point about the team’s performance. I think that was more a result of the players rising to the challenge rather than Clarke’s captaincy. I don’t downgrade him greatly, I just evaluate captains performance with some scepticism. Too often outcomes are directed at captaincy to a far greater degree than it should be. I’ve been in many winning teams that were poorly captained.

Interesting article and I can’t find anything on the subject of Clarke’s on-going commentary to disagree with.
But I do disagree with the author’s assessment of his captaincy abilities. Quality leaders don’t have his record of a team with constant dissent and argument in the shed. He failed leadership badly and while his attacking style was admirable, his overall ranking was ordinary in my opinion. So putting him ahead of the likes of Payne, in particular, doesn’t meet my captaincy criteria.

Thanks for the article Mark. I do disagree strongly with your assessment of Darren Berry. As a first grade and rep keeper, and rep keeper coach I rate Berry as the best I saw in the 90’s. He took Warne and stood up to Reiffel, brilliantly, at a time when the MCG deck was a nightmare for keepers. RowiE

Yes, I think we’re on the same page. My feeling is that we aren’t trying to develop these higher level skills because there is so much emphasis on big hitting. It’s so easy to see late in the first innings or in a tough chase when batsman are sitting back in the crease and hoping to hit big. Good bowling combats this and the hitters will succeed less and less frequently as bowlers get better. That’s why we need more highly skilled short form batsman rather than more hitters. It will be interesting to watch the game evolve further, when we can hold games again. Cheers RowiE

Thanks for the comment. Re the power hitters, my point was that we seem to be looking for power hitters as a solution rather than pursuing the likes of Carey and Smith. I think the balance is wrong and we suffer too often from power hitters coming in late and failing when 15 off 12 gets you well above par with an established batsman at the other end.
I’m not talking about nudging the ball around chasing 8plus an over, quality batsmen that I’m talking about hit a single/2 off the ball the power hitters hit dot, then hit 4 by better footwork, batsman skill etc that the hitter can’t, like a guide through 2nd slip off a yorker. I still want the hitters, but add in combination with some higher, craftier skill will get us more runs. Cheers

Hi Jc, I said Smith didn’t make my list, but you inferred he didn’t rate at all. I was talking about the very top batsmen. If you look only at stats as a rating, you must regard Voges as better than Tendulkar. Please don’t respond about number of runs, against who etc. because that would be subjective, which is what you criticised my list for. Every list is subjective and I may regard your list as pointless, but I wouldn’t, because it would be a pointless comment

Marty, if you look at the referenced article, you may review your opinion

Hi Paul, didn’t see a shred of evidence. You clearly didn’t look at the link to the article I referenced. Might have been a good idea before you commented.

High Jc, why incredibly pointless?

Hey ozinsa I don’t see how you can just say he’s wrong and sign off. At least make an attempt to say why, otherwise you’re just talking to yourself.

Am I missing something or has the white ball suddenly become less durable. There has been a lot of mention of the soft ball. It didn’t get soft when Hayden and Symonds smashed it around, at least no-one commented on it, as I remember. Is too much being made of this and perhaps not as much recognition going to bowlers?

SR1, it is probability fundamentals, I absolutely agree. What you refuse to accept is that you have only the most minimal understanding and you have , because of your lack of knowledge, applied the wrong principle to this scenario. Not once did you use correct terminology and not once did you, by using probability theory, argue my points. You just keep saying the same thing. You’re WRONG. I tried desperately to let you down easy, knowing from your first comment that you were wrong, but no, you wouldn’t give up.
SR1 Rules of life
1. SR1 is never wrong,
2. When SR1 is wrong, refer to Rule 1.
This has not been fun, this is exasperating. Good bye.

Sorry SR1, you just stated that you agree with my previous comment and then directly contradict yourself. If you really understood what I wrote you can’t agree and disagree at the same time. Just admit you don’t understand, because I know you don’t.
At least that’s the end, cheers.

Interesting, I won’t bother to enquire further I don’t have the time, my comment on your lack of use of appropriate terminology still stands. I did years of data analysis and never used probability, in the sense we are discussing here.
You seem to be fixated on the gamblers fallacy when you should be looking at the Law of Large Numbers LLN. You also don’t seem to accept the reality where we have a finite space and an infinite number of attempts and a known ratio ie effectively the probability of being struck or not, that probability approaches 1.

Ok, What sort of work do you do that requires probability? I didn’t jump to any conclusion, I looked at the language you used in your comments and not once did you use the terminology associated with probability. I think that is a fair conclusion, but I’m only too happy to be proved wrong. So please let me know what work you do all the time. Can’t wait to hear. Cheers

SR1, at least we agree on one thing and that is the topic of my article revolves around risk.
However I can tell by the terminology you use that you have never studied probability, or if you have, it was so long ago that you’ve forgotten. My request that you research was my polite effort to say, go look up some text books on probability.
I repeat, I have agreed to disagree. It seems you haven’t.
So, cheers, good luck and good bye on this matter.

SR1, I have agreed to disagree. You have rewritten statistical probability 101. Please, please do some research.

SR1 you are confusing a single event with multiple events. In your world the chances of tossing ten straight heads is the same as the single event which is 50/50. Ten straight heads odds is 1/1024. Please let’s talk about safety in cricket.
But I think that is not the issue with our different view. You stated that your position is predicated on the event not necessarily happening. Therefore you are saying that, in this case, our ten year old can stand at the fence and NEVER be hit regardless of how many matches he or she goes to. Put another way, his or her risk of being struck is zero. This is patently not true. But you believe, so we can leave it and agree to disagree.

I don’t understand your position. You seem to treat a coin toss with a random outcome scenario. My logic is that if you stand in front of a dart board with your eyes closed and randomly throw darts, sooner or later you’ll hit a bulls eye. It might be first dart it might be 10,000, but as the number of throws increases so does the likelihood of a bullseye. You can toss a 10 cent coin as often as you like, the odds on any give toss on the two only possible outcomes is 50/50. If you don’t agree, fine. I am no longer interested.