It was good to see this young Sri Lankan team win today. A 3 to 2 series loss (considering the incorrect wide call in match 3) to Australia, the team ranked 1; is a great outcome. They’ve worked on reducing the dot balls, and if they can get through the 1st power play without losing too many wickets, they will be quite a force to be reckoned with. I expect the youngsters will be a significantly better team by October, and will cause some upsets at the world cup.

In my opinion Greg Chappell is way too self opinionated and political to be a sound, unbiased selector.

I agree with Usie on 2 points.
Cricket has an age old policy, the batsman has the benefit of the doubt. Therefore it never makes sense for the umpires to go to the 3rd umpire due to doubt, and give a soft decision of “out”. If there is doubt, the soft option must be “not out” by default. If the 3rd umpire does not have conclusive evidence, the “not out” should prevail. On the other hand if the umpire has no doubt, then the 3rd umpire should not be engaged.
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The rule is that the ball should not touch the ground. It is not that the fingers should be under the ball. The rule has no reference to fingers. In this case, there is no doubt the ball touched the ground. There is only some doubt whether a finger was under the ball, which is irrelevant.
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I would add that many of us who play the game now accept that often the fielder may genuinely feel they caught the catch, when they haven’t. Therefore the old custom of accepting the fielders view should no longer apply.
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As a Thunder supporter, I am deeply disappointed, and can’t help feeling the biases within cricket are against some clubs.

Australia hardly ever declares without a lead of 400. The reason we lost, is because we dropped chances and the English openers survived 20 overs. In all 4 innings, the ball did little after 30 overs,giving middle order bats a great opportunity!

The top order has failed in both innings in Sydney and really none of them has fired consistently in the series. Khawaja has the highest average for the series, and is probably the top run getter with 235 runs, and yet it would be typical of his career, if he is dropped from the team. There will be a soft reason such as fitness, attitude or the need to stick to the initial team!!

I agree, Khawaja for Harris. If Harris is not performing now, he should not be in the team now. He will probably have 7 opportunities by the end of this test. When looking back, if Khawaja was give half the opportunities Harris has been given, he would have developed into a more consistent player at test level.

Ricky Ponting’s comments show how biased the selection committee is and has been with Khawaja. It seems objective performance is not the criteria, it is subjective attitude etc that matters! Khawaja had the potential to captain Australia if not for the biased selections.

He is probably the only player to have been in an oriignal team, and then dropped the moment he scores a century; the only player to have the highest ODI average, when not selected to the Australian world cup team etc, etc. What mental strength to survive in such an environment.

I feel the underlying objective is to give us a competitive advantage due to our pace attack. A similar type of experiment was occurring in Sydney when the Hughes incident occurred.

Another sub standard Perth wicket. I expect it will be unplayable this afternoon, and we are still on day 4. My forecast; NZ all out for under 100, a batsman out for the rest of the tournament, with Australian players looking to the heavens after the event, instead of doing something about it before it occurs.

Any subcontinent spinner would have had Wade stumped before he reached 20, by bowling a wide down the leg side. He advanced predictably and too early.

A very enjoyable article.

I believe the physical advantage Smith has is his reflexes. I’ve noticed it even when he fields in the slips, he is the 1st to move. I think this is why he is able to fend off the in-seamer which would normally hit the pads, particularly with the across the wicket pre-movement he makes. I noticed that he was LBW on 3 occasions during the world cup and matches leading to the Ashes, which made me think he had lost his edge with reflexes. But by the time the Ashes commenced, he was back in form; there was no chance of anyone hitting him on the pads. He seems to have so much time.

Having said that I find watching his twitches and unconventional batting irritating. I’d rather watch stylish bats like Kohli, Sharma, Williamson or Azam in full flight, with full access to the off side on the front foot. Also, besides the cheating incident, I wish he would handle himself in a more mature fashion on and off the field. He is really letting himself down.

Tim has such a mature attitude towards the game. Quite a change from the usual captains we encounter.
Besides Cummings thinking the ball was pitching in line and Tim knowing it did not hit the bat; one of the reason for using the review, although he does not mention it, is that there were less than 10 runs to be scored, and it was unlikely that the review would come in use. Similar to the batting side using it for the 10th wicket, just in case of a no ball. However in this case another opportunity did occur.
The LBW call was a hard decision to give out because Lyons was bowling from wide around the wicket, so when the ball pitches on the leg stump it has to spin significantly to hit the stumps. When played on the front foot, there is little time to determine the deviation.

Ronan, I read your articles with great interest, however on this occasion I feel that by focusing only “determined” Smith and the behavior of the English players and crowd, you have missed a significant issue, the “Win at all costs” attitude of the Australian cricket management.

Any rational person would have expected Smith to be out of the game for at least 4 wks, particularly if you have seen the Hughes footage. Instead, to my absolute horror, they sent him back in. For Langer to imply that Smith wanted his name on the Lords honour board, as one of the reasons, is so immature and unprofessional. Furthermore, I couldn’t believe that the Australian team still continues to play without a stem guard. My son wares one in the under 15s.

While we should not expect our sportsman to have the smarts to make the right call in these situations, we sure can expect the management to do so. CA must educate their employees that the safety of these players is the most important factor, not “win at all costs”, or being macho. If you don’t want to ware a stem guard, don’t play the game.

The next match that Smith plays should not be against a team with Archer in it, and none of the decisions should be in Smiths hands. That’s if we want him to recover and have an ongoing career.

While I am not certain they can win the world cup, I agree that Warner and Smith should not disrupt the team that is settling in beautifully. Firstly, I don’t believe either of them will perform to their previous level; Secondly, they could ruin the team spirit, as the full ball tampering story is unknown to us; and finally, Finch is a stable and mature captain, who should remain in the team purely from a calm leadership aspect.

I feel the Sri Lanka tests are being used to experiment and try out new hands. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Marsh brothers waltz right back into the team for the Ashes!

South Africa setup a number of cameras specifically at Cape town, because they suspected cheating at the previous matches when reverse swing was achieved at 30 overs. In my mind clearly cheating was systemic and not an isolated incident in which the whole leadership was involved, particularly the bowling leadership.

The approach taken has been to, hit hard at those publicly known to have cheated with immediate effect, gradually fire the admin staff involved, Peavers, Sutherland, Howard and Lehman. No action has been taken on the bowlers who are now looking a pretty mediocre attack with little skill other than to bounce. It’s probably for the best, or we might have lost our test playing status!!

The real problem lies in CA covering up the truth. If the full story was known, then these 3 will not have anything new to divulge. There are some key contradictions which clearly indicate that we only know half the story.

– South Africans setup the camera’s to detect this, only because they already suspected cheating at the previous test, when reverse swing occurred in the 30th over. So the cheating was not a single event, but systemic.

– Bowlers are in charge of managing the condition of the ball, so for only 3 batsman to be implicated is farcical. It’s highly likely that there are a few bowlers in leadership positions still shivering in their boots waiting for something new to be revealed.

– The 3 implicated have been through a process of psychological recovery. What they say now will be based on what is best for their own recovery and not necessarily an unbiased view.

As for David Warner, I suspect he will be back in the team because that will be the basis for him to take the rap and keep quiet. If he talks, then there will not be a big impact on the CA admin as those responsible have already been fired, Peavers, Sutherland, Howard and Lehman, but I suspect it will impact the bowlers.

The whole board should be fired. The mere fact that David Peevers was re-elected a week before the report was released to the public, shows that all the member are far too complicit.

The next chairman should be appointed for a short term, with the specific transformation objective of changing the culture. A person from within the existing culture, who knows no other culture will simply fail. An ex cricket will not have the skills nor smarts to do it. We need someone from overseas, or a woman, for 18 months.

I think Starc is best in the ODI format particularly at the end of the innings. Also due to the financial benefits of playing the T20 tournaments, he should be playing 3 hrs of T20 when he is not playing for Australia. As for test, I suspect he is too prone to injury for the rigours of test, and I don’t believe he will last a 5 test series. It will also cause him to be continually in and out of the teams due to injury.

Looks like the good drinking buddies got the job! Not sure about their leadership or smarts. I suppose that’s the consequence of a popular vote process.

Its pointless comparing the ACB’s reaction to the premeditated use of sand paper, vs the more common infringement of using lollies with spit, particularly after the lie about it being tape.

It’s also naive to think that 3 batsman were the only team members involved in managing the condition of the ball. There was hard evidence already available to the public implicating these 3. The ACB had no option but to take action against them. The bowlers got away.

Poor Fraser Anning! He would feel so uncomfortable in any of the Eastern cities of Australia.

Nice article. I certainly identify with the open ended arguments on the best batsman.

I would suggest Grit / Mind as a separate category to technical. I would put Smith in this and the ugly categories. I would have Koli in it and technical as in my view he has the best cover drive in the game (like Roy Dias).

I don’t think Smith will been the player he was ever again. Even if he does come back to the team, there will be such a negative vibe around him, that he will not enjoy the experience. Also, in the Australian setup, it is hard for an ex-captain to continue to play in the team.

CA has messed up the career of another one of our cricketers by making them captain well before they are mature enough for it. While he may have been good at some facets of captaining, he is certainly not in many.

Khawaja should be in Test and ODI team. Not sure about T20 team as I have not seen him since he took Thunder to win the BBL. Certainly should have been in the team then.

We need brains to captain Australia, and Khawaja is the man. Besides being the captain of the Sheffield shield winners Queensland, he has also captained the Australia A’s, is an Aeronautical Engineer and most importantly a good age. That’s the stuff real captains are made of. Paine shouldn’t be in any of the Australian teams.

On a spin wicket, Yes. If not, when we have our full pace attack, we will do them for pace. We do need to be able to face spin. England seems to think that it is our Achilles heel.

The Australian ODI team is like a local under 10 club team where the focus is to participation. It seems the focus is to ensure everyone participates! There is not one person in the team that is a definite selection. No one has a clue who will be selected until the team is announced.

England on the other hand have a consistent team of 10 definite selections, and the focus is to win.