Doing it tough: Are modern cricketers really tasked with heavy workloads?
In recent debates over who should replace David Warner to open for Australia, I’ve seen suggestions that Cameron Green’s form declined in the Ashes…
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In recent debates over who should replace David Warner to open for Australia, I’ve seen suggestions that Cameron Green’s form declined in the Ashes…
This article follows up a recent piece setting out a way of measuring and comparing performances in one-day international cricket over the decades. It…
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The condition of Indian pitches remains a growing concern in international cricket.
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It’s a tough life being a professional cricketer. Take the English cricket team, for example. Acting coach Paul Collingwood said last week that the…
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This third article in this series comparing cricket and baseball looks at the respective traditions, quirks and controversies of cricket and baseball, including sportsmanship,…
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The question of how to interpret a player’s career statistics has featured in several Roar articles recently. Renato Carini has challenged conventional views with…
Why would Rohit want revenge? You guys have won the last four series! Should be good, Australia will have to bat a lot better to win.
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
Interesting stat from Ric Finlay: On 98 occasions in Tests, teams have been 4-34 or worse chasing a target. Australia’s eventual total of 7-281 is the highest ever achieved following that start, heading off NZ’s 8-278 v Pak after being 4-23, Dunedin, 1985. Of the 98, 11 were chased down, 75 failed and 12 drawn. (Of course most of the 11 chased down probably lowish totals.)
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
Good idea making Head play county. Usman has said he might play The Hundred, England’s T16.666 repeating comp, to fill in time before the next season. I think he meant because the money is better than county cricket. Like the new photo Rowdy, do we take it that the operation was successful? ????
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
A couple of matches early next season won’t tell you a whole lot. Bangers could get a couple of pearlers on a greentop and two low scores, Renshaw or Harris could scratch around on a flat deck, get dropped, make a big score or two, it could be entirely misleading. (You’ll be pleased to know Don, that my pendulum has come around to favour Bancroft, though I’m worried none of them can play good spin well.)
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
Agree BG that they need to play more Shield or red ball, especially leading up to a big Test series. Not sure it’s a boys’ club, to be fair. They have simply gone down hill in batting form since the middle of the England series, and the CWC focus didn’t help. Travis in particular seems to have let his CWC final success go to his Head – not ego wise, but overconfidence perhaps, overdoing the attack to the point where he’s lost instinctive judgment about which shots are more hittable and in his wheelhouse. But the bowlers have arguably got even better – Hazlewood, Cummins and Lyon, though maybe not Starc. But these guys had a lot of credits in the bank after the WTC win and good recent series. The best 6 thing was partly the fixation with having Green’s all round skills in the team, but also the lack of anyone really breaking down the door. Bancroft was in the Shield but he was disappointing in the past. I’d now favour looking at him again, rather than Renshaw who’s looked a bit dodgy when I’ve seen him recently. They also need to look very carefully at who can play spin well.
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
You have to aim for where the fielders ain’t if you hit in the air. Mitch failed to do that on multiple occasions. It’s hitting and hoping, but the vast percentage of his attacking shots are well-executed, which is why he did so well yesterday after getting dropped.
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
I wouldn’t go too far down the track of relying too much on scores from three early season Sheffield Shield scores. They might tell you something, they might not. You have to look at how people played and the conditions. Bancroft could play on a Brisbane green top and get two unplayable seamers and two low scores. Renshaw could play on a flat deck in Perth, get dropped, play and miss ten times, scratch around and end up with a century. 5 or 6 innings is still a small sample to be a reliable predictor in most cases – we need a longer time frame to work out the likelihood of someone succeeding.
Agree that Smith probably needs to move back down the order, thought at this stage there are no easy answers 3-6. Marnus and Green gave us hope about their form with two innings in the series, but then Marnus hits a ball on 90 in the air straight to point, like Marsh and Head off two consecutive balls yesterday – perhaps the two worst shots off consecutive balls I can recall by Aussie batters. And Green in this Test out to two terribly incompetent defensive shots. As for Head, some are saying look how well did in a few other games, but his attacking shot selection has gone to the dogs since the World Cup- way too hit and miss.
Marsh of course will definitely be in the team first Test against in India, but I worry about him as much as anyone against India. He doesn’t have a good record against spin, and if they play two spinners it could be ugly (much as I like him in the team). Against Phillips, who I doubt would make any Shield team as a specialist spinner, he got two half volleys and a full toss in one over when he was on about 50 and he misplayed all three terribly.
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
True about the lbw decision. I was gobsmacked to hear Julien say it was a great decision. The fact that DRS showed it was only just faintly clipping is means we can’t be 100% it’s trajectory was going to hit the stumps. And in 99% of matches an umpire should be giving that not out as it’s impossible to be sure with the naked eye that a ball is just going to clip the stumps. But Marsh has a really bad flaw, which is hitting it in the air in the vicinity of a fielder too often, especially around backward point, which he did about 3 other times yesterday. But he’s improved a lot recently so maybe he’s not too old to become more selective. His and Head’s shots straight to backward point off 125kph Southee off consecutive balls at the start of play yesterday was perhaps the worst such pair of shots by top order Australian batters I can recall. But unlike Marsh, Head is hitting and hoping and not executing way too much.
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher
Well I can’t say it’s not commendable, but it’s like baseball, an error is a big deal. Only question is how difficult they were, or if you take one that would be taken by others a small percentage of the time. Doesn’t matter if 10 chances are spread over ten playing days or two, in the end it’s the percentage of drops and screamers that count. As you say, their job is to take them for hours on end and not to miss anything straightforward, whether it’s off the bat or not. Not a job most of us could do, but that’s the base level expectation for a Test or first class keeper.
Carey the clutch king: Gloveman's stunning 98, Cummins heroics keep Kiwi curse alive in thrilling comeback win
Southee’s right. NZ’s catching let them down overall through the series, although Phillips’s 1 in a 100 blinder perhaps made up for some others. Carey’s ten catches shouldnt have been a factor in the MoM award, unless some were really tough – don’t think they were? – and he didn’t drop any catchable ones, which he did. But really happy for him to come good after three abysmal shots in a row.
Carey the clutch king: Gloveman's stunning 98, Cummins heroics keep Kiwi curse alive in thrilling comeback win
Agree up to a point, but I’m not sure that the balls Smith is getting out to are particularly different to those he was dealing with early in the piece in many innings at no. 4. But maybe opening is affecting his mindset. So yes Id be inclined to send him back to 4 and find a new opener. Head has played so many poor shots he must be hanging by a thread. Still playing like the WC final but not executing. Needs to do some more red ball in county cricket or similar and have a good opening to the Shield season, or drop him.
Carey the clutch king: Gloveman's stunning 98, Cummins heroics keep Kiwi curse alive in thrilling comeback win
This match was probably lost in the first innings on the second day with a sub-par score in good batting conditions, though the second innings continued the run of bad shots. But there wasn’t a much worse collection of incompetent shots than Head, Green, Marsh, Marnus and Carey in the first innings.
Henry looks like taking ten plus wickets in the match. It’s hard to find another match innings in the history of cricket where a quick bowler has taken ten wickets or more in a winning team, having started the match with a bowling average as high as Henry started this match with (33.9). And before the previous two matches against the SA 3rd XI his average was 37. I’m not sure whether that’s a measure of how much he has improved (aged 32!) or the decline of the Australian batting. I’m inclined to think it’s the batting. The worst batting performance against NZ I can recall (noting their best bowler Jamieson is out), discounting a couple of bad losses by a near second string team against the great Richard Hadlee in the mid-80s. Hoping they pull some magic out of the hat to make me look silly, but it ain’t shaping up well today.
Rejigged Aussie batting line-up fails again as top-order collapse puts Black Caps on track for drought-breaking Test win
NZ playing with more certainty in the second innings because the pitch has flattened out. Australia should have had a lead of at least 150, probably more, given the way it played . A series of some of the most ordinary shots to get out by an Australian team I can remember, apart perhaps from the openers. Travis has become hit and miss – a disconnect from his usual instincts for knowing when his shots are going to come off. The less said about Carey the better, again. Marnus’s was bad too – no footwork and a back cut in the air near a fielder. Sure he batted well enough before that, but the reason the best players make really big scores is by not hitting it in the air when you don’t need to. Green’s shot to get out was poor defence, ditto Marsh.
Marnus regains form but Australia's ongoing middle-order woes put heat on Carey as Kiwis claw back into Test
Need to think about which batters can play good spin well.
Marnus regains form but Australia's ongoing middle-order woes put heat on Carey as Kiwis claw back into Test
You call getting out capitulation, not having backbone? They had little chance as their bowling was a fraction of the Indians’ quality on those tracks. Three of the four best spinners in the world plus arguably the best quick against two complete rookie spinners.
Marnus regains form but Australia's ongoing middle-order woes put heat on Carey as Kiwis claw back into Test
Reckon we’ll be chasing 300+ though.
Marnus regains form but Australia's ongoing middle-order woes put heat on Carey as Kiwis claw back into Test
I didn’t say we were overall. But a small lead in the first innings here will be a poor effort and put us at risk of losing, which is very disappointing – they have a weak bowling lineup, and we would miss out on WTC points. But we certainly haven’t lost yet.
Hazlewood's high five skittles Black Caps, but misfiring top order again stops Aussies taking full control
Well we should never be pleased to do poorly against NZ. We have five times the population and ten times the cricket history. And debate and commentary is about who played well and who didn’t. And Australian batters have played some poor shots, though I wouldn’t include
Smith and Khawaja. One positive that deserves more attention- some excellent catching again.
Hazlewood's high five skittles Black Caps, but misfiring top order again stops Aussies taking full control
“ his three taking him past the great Dennis Lillee into outright fourth on Australia’s all-time Test wickets tally”. So he’s better than Lillee? This is the only stat you guys ever mention, without any context, in a ranked list of players. So you must think it is the most significant stat you can mention?
Khawaja and Smith a bit unlucky. Head, Marnus, Carey, Marsh all out to poor shots. Carey just abominable.
Hazlewood's high five skittles Black Caps, but misfiring top order again stops Aussies taking full control
Not sure what your point is. Lillee’s average was still way better.
'Harden the F up': No nonsense message that pushed Starc to new heights
So you admit you called me “stupid” for that entirely illogical reason? And said I was sledging? And you write offensively all the time. And say it’s stupid to compare people 80 years ago when you’ve written stuff comparing people like Trumper, Bradman and Waugh. But I was worried that you might double down, because I recalled that you told us you had been involved in teaching. I do fear for our education system sometimes. But of course Glenn McGrath was a better batsman than Mark Waugh. His average tells you nothing.
'Harden the F up': No nonsense message that pushed Starc to new heights
But that’s the clear message being hammered again and again simply by giving ranked lists. These are the ONLY ranked lists they give, especially on TV coverage – wickets, runs or numbers of centuries – and there is never the slightest caveat like X played a lot more matches than Y, or A had a much worse average than B, or DB isn’t even on the list but was twice as effective than most of these guys in the opportunities he did have over 20 years.
'Harden the F up': No nonsense message that pushed Starc to new heights
Nice one. Actually I agree you can’t go past Thommo at his best 2-3 years. I was more boringly focusing on long careers.
'Harden the F up': No nonsense message that pushed Starc to new heights
Definitely a worry. Of course, one young player who could have been right up there, getting the right sorts of runs was Pucovski but he sadly seems to be out of the running thanks to concussions
It was interesting to see highlights on Fox of the last time Aus played in NZ 8 years ago with Voges and Burns getting bags of runs (and Mitch Marsh looking completely out of place at 6 but bowling OK). Voges was another player with an excellent red ball pedigree who finally cracked and played in the most orthodox fashion.
With reference to Rod Marsh’s comments about the big bats – it was amusing to see Baz McCullum’s record breaking 56-ball hundred in his final Test in that series. Amazing innings but half the boundaries were just crossbat swinging from the proverbial and lots of top edges, a few going for six. At one stage Australia had a fielder at fly slip and another at long stop position behind the keeper. Another apples and oranges record. If McCullum had used the bat Viv Richards used in his 57 ball hundred I doubt he would have got 100 in under 70 balls, and probably would have been caught on the boundary. It was also interesting to see Wagner mop up the last few wickets with his short ball tactic, taking 6/102 as Australia made over 500. Neither he nor McCullum made any difference to the result. Pity we couldn’t see Wagner line up again to see if our guys could finally play him without looking foolish and falling into the trap. Also so I could finally see someone pepper Wagner himself with a lot of short balls for once.
Pipeline running dry: Aussie selectors struggling to find young batters knocking at the door, let alone bashing it down
No of course I knew you meant it as turning the tables on the cricket field, nothing lethal. But I’d completely overlooked the WTC and CWC finals, so yes those would be added reasons for Rohit as captain to look for revenge!
Test Mortem: Epic comeback win but cracks remain in line-up, Shield form has to count for something, Pat should bat higher